ManitobaCynthia Flett knows she’ll have to move from an encampment in Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood, after city workers erected signs in Mostyn Park saying camping is prohibited — but she’s not sure when.’Substantial’ number of housing units needed for people at encampment next to Granite Curling Club: cityOzten Shebahkeget · CBC News · Posted: Nov 25, 2025 7:07 PM EST | Last Updated: 1 hour agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Cynthia Flett has been living at an encampment in Winnipeg’s Mostyn Park since spring. She’s unsure when the city will dismantle the encampment and says she has nowhere else to go. (Mike Arsenault/CBC)Cynthia Flett knows she’ll have to move from an encampment in Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood, after city workers erected signs in Mostyn Park saying camping is prohibited — but she’s not sure when.The city’s new rules, which have been in effect for just over a week, prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.Two encampments in the city were cleared last week, according to the city. It plans to dismantle the encampment in Mostyn Park, next to the Granite Curling Club on Granite Way, where Flett has been living since spring.Outreach teams helped other people living in the encampment find housing or shelter, she said, and she hopes for the same help.”I don’t know when I’ll get housed or when I’ll get help,” she told CBC on Friday.”If they don’t want me here, they just have to find me a place to go, or take me somewhere to go, [because] I have nowhere else to go.”Flett is among roughly 15 people living at the Mostyn Park site, according to Greg MacPherson, the city’s acting manager of community development.He’s not sure when the Mostyn Park encampment will be dismantled.”The number of units that would be required for that site is fairly substantial. We want to be sure to make … those good offers [to people], and have something in hand when we visit them and ask them to move on,” he said Friday.That will require help from other levels of government, he said.”Ultimately, we need housing and we need to address the issues that people are struggling with at these sites, and that’s more complicated than we can do with a simple bylaw change … from the city.”To avoid surprises, he says the Main Street Project is the first point of contact at encampments before any enforcement is done.”There are people who are suffering in these sites, and we’re trying to approach that with as much compassion as we can.”Greg MacPherson, the city’s acting manager of community development, says roughly 15 people are living at the Mostyn Park site, but he’s not sure when it will be dismantled. (CBC)Executive director Jamil Mahmood says Main Street Project — the city’s sole contractor for homelessness outreach — has been working to find housing for people in encampments through its own programs and the provincial homelessness strategy, as well as in the private market.Main Street Project’s role “is not enforcement, but rather to pass on information and to continue meeting the needs of unsheltered individuals,” Mahmood said in an emailed statement.MacPherson says the city is also trying to address the needs of the broader community, because living next to an encampment presents its own challenges.”We want to be sure that we’re supporting these neighbourhoods and these communities to have access to their public sites, and so it’s a balance for us,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re moving as quickly as we can, as carefully as we can.”Daycare steers clear of messy site Sonja, a Winnipeg mother whose children attend a daycare just across the street from the Mostyn Park site, says the debris and garbage there has become an eyesore over the last several months.”Pants, strollers, shopping carts, mattresses — like, it just looked very piled up.… There [were] a lot of tents and temporary shelters set up,” she said Tuesday.CBC News is not using her last name due to safety concerns for her children.Sonja says about 100 kids attend the daycare daily. While she empathizes with people struggling with homelessness, a balance is needed to keep the children safe to enjoy outdoor activities, she said.”I don’t think that they’ve been taking as many walks and spending as much time outside since the encampment has expanded over the last few months,” said Sonja.A ‘camping prohibited’ sign lies on the ground near a homeless encampment at Mostyn Place Park on Granite Way on Tuesday, Nov. 18. (CBC)”That should also take precedence in the eyes of the city, because these are their formative years,” she said. “You want them to have a good experience in a safe space where they can be all day long.”Security guards have started to monitor the daycare building during pickup and drop-off times, Sonja said.”I guess it’s reassuring, but on the other side of that coin, I feel like it’s unacceptable that you need a security monitor in front of a child-care centre.”She says she felt compelled to speak up after seeing how “out of hand” the encampment had become.Encampment resident Flett says she doesn’t enjoy the mess either, and she’s tried to keep it clean in the past.City workers who visited the site Friday told Flett that more workers would come to clean the site. Things are up in the air for her until that happens, she said.”I don’t like living in [a] camp, but I’ve got no choice…. I don’t know who to talk to, or who to ask for help,” said Flett.”If they tell me to leave and find me a place to live, I’ll leave.”WATCH | ‘Substantial’ housing needs for Mostyn encampment, city says:Lack of housing a hurdle in plan to clean up encampmentsA lack of available spaces is proving to be a challenge for outreach teams as a new City of Winnipeg bylaw aims to clear out encampments and relocate people into housing, while some in encampments say they don’t know if, or when, they will be moved. With files from Mike Arsenault and Djeneba Dosso
‘Nowhere else to go,’ says woman at encampment decried as eyesore amid Winnipeg’s crackdown
