A small group of homeless people are living in tents on the doorstep of Regina City Hall, but the choice of location wasn’t accidental.
They’re trying to ramp up the pressure on city council to live up to a promise to end homelessness in the city.
Community organizer Kale Maclellan said the tent demonstration started as a bit of a solidarity-building exercise between 16 community members.
“The City bylaw enforcement chased us out of Pepsi Park … and so we were discussing like, what is most effective? Like, what should we do next?” said Maclellan.
“Somebody threw out the idea that it would be interesting to take this right to city hall … we really wanted to show solidarity.”
In June 2022, Regina City Council made a commitment to end homelessness within one year, but that plan didn’t make it into the budget and no further action on that promise has happened.
Local volunteers and organizations have been advocating and working to help keep homeless people fed and warm.
Now they’re calling on the mayor’s office to face the music, so they literally brought the problem to her front door.
“There was many of us who spoke at the budget deliberations in December, we’ve been writing everyone, we’ve been taking all these steps and we’ve been hitting roadblock after roadblock,” MacLellan said. “So, now we’re making sure (they) can’t ignore us anymore and that (they) can’t ignore the folks that are living here.”
Local volunteer Tamara Co said they made it a safe space for the homeless as there have been issues with people getting kicked out of certain areas. She said there are roughly 30 people who stay at the encampment.
“I’m here to support and I know that they’re trying to help the homeless and they’re trying to talk to the people at City Hall (to) house some of these people because everyone deserves to have a roof over their head,” she said.
“It’s a basic necessity.”
Regina Mayor Sandra Masters said the council has not met again on the issue in terms of the report coming forward last year.
“We’re fully aware of the dollar value … the city council not accepting responsibility for what is a provincial and federal government issue,” said Masters.
“Our partnership remains the same. We continue to work with the Ministry of Social Services. We do fund the rent for covering the temporary shelter … we’re looking and working with the ministry and RT/SIS right now in terms of finding permanent space.”
Mayor Masters said she does not think that tents in public spaces ultimately is an acceptable outcome or solution for anyone.