SaskatchewanA Prince Albert resident is frustrated with homeless people living in the woods behind his house along the Rotary Trail in Prince Albert’s River view neighborhood. The city has begun tracking the number of encampments and says 371 have been reported to date this year, 89 per cent of which have been dismantled.City seeks a balance between disrupting encampments and supporting vulnerable peopleLisa Risom · CBC News · Posted: Nov 07, 2025 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 7 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Clark Torgundson says he’s tired of the fires, garbage and late-night noise from homeless encampments behind his house in Prince Albert. (Lisa Risom/CBC)Prince Albert homeowner Clark Torgundson says homeless encampments are making him and other Riverview residents feel unsafe. “People in the neighborhood don’t want their kids walking on the trails now because of what lurks in the bushes. You know, you don’t know what kind of drugs they’re on what they’re going to do,” he said.Torgundson’s backyard faces the Rotary Trail and wooded area near the city’s off-leash dog park. He’s lived in his house for 15 years and says over the last year and a half he’s had several negative confrontations with people living in the wooded area.Garbage, vandalism, theft and hollering at all hours of the night are some of the complaints he reported to the city and his Ward 4 councillor, he said. “I ended up cleaning and taking a whole truckload of garbage to the dump myself and now they’re back setting up camp a little bit again. And they’ve had several fires lately, so it’s just frustrating.”WATCH | City of Prince Albert struggles with homeless encampments:City of Prince Albert struggles with homeless encampmentsAmid near-daily complaints about encampments, the city searches for the right balance between tearing down tents and helping the people who live in them.The fire department came to the area twice this year to deal with fires that spread to the trees and grass.Camping on city property is prohibited. Torgundson said getting rid of urban woodlands is not the answer. He would like the city to regularly check the area to prevent people from moving back in.He’d also like the city and the province to work together to help the unhoused, but doesn’t believe a new mobile outreach team and complex needs facility will solve the matter, he said.“A lot of those people living that lifestyle [have] got to want to change, and they’re not going to change because they have a warm bed at nighttime. I think there needs to be different programs than 24 hours, ‘Here you go, see you later, get a bed and a meal.’ Do I know the answer? I don’t know the total answer. ”Dustyn Korecki said he’s been homeless for over two years and is on a waiting list for the YWCA Homeward Bound Program. (Lisa Risom/CBC)Dustyn Korecki is one of the people whose tents have been taken down. “They actually bulldozed my tent over, with my heater and generator in it. Just threw it in the dump … I had to re-start over everything,” Korecki said.His lower legs were amputated and he uses a wheelchair. He’s been homeless for over two years due to his drug addiction, he said.He’s been on a waiting list for the YWCA Homeward Bound housing program for over six months and will continue to camp out in Prince Albert until he finds a more permanent shelter, he said.”Municipalities are having to navigate this fine line between disrupting encampments and supporting folks that are most vulnerable, and I don’t think there’s a perfect answer,” said Anna Dinsdale, the City of Prince Albert’s community safety and well-being coordinator.Two years ago, with the help of a federal grant, the city began tracking homeless encampment numbers. To date in 2025, 371 encampments have been reported, including 54 last month. Forty-eight of those have been dismantled by the city’s bylaw and sanitation departments. Dinsdale said mobile outreach groups from the community, such as the Prince Albert Métis Women’s Association Street Outreach Services, accompany city workers when encampments are taken down to offer help to the people living there. The province provided $131,000 to fund the outreach service from Sept. 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025.“We know that our response is balancing disruption and connecting people to services, but really what we need to do is make sure we are working more upstream, what we call upstream, to increase opportunities for people to access services and also prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place,” Dinsdale said.Mayor Bill Powalinsky said he hopes the new complex needs facility will have an impact.“It’s not about providing shelter. It’s about providing an intervention. And instead of throwing people into jail and then releasing them onto the street, which is very unproductive. Our police force are not equipped to handle complex social and health issues.”A homeless encampment in the woods along Second Avenue West in Prince Albert. (Lisa Risom/CBC)Prince Albert has 101 shelter beds: 14 for youth and 30 for women and children through the YWCA, 22 at Our House shelter and 35 at the Prince Albert Grand Council Relatives Lodge.The Ministry of Social Services said the province spent over $2.1 million to address the needs of homeless people in Prince Albert in 2025-26, including support for two emergency shelters and street outreach.The ministry said the province and the city are collaborating to develop a new shelter facility near the exhibition grounds, and discussing support for the city’s cold weather strategy.ABOUT THE AUTHORLisa Risom has two decades of multimedia journalism experience in northeast Saskatchewan. She joined CBC Prince Albert in 2025.
Prince Albert faces its own struggle with homeless encampments
