ManitobaAs tent encampments are being cleared out across Winnipeg, some of the people living in those camps say they aren’t being offered housing. St. Boniface Street Links says encampment resident have turned to them for help.People in encampments are confused about city’s new bylaw, aren’t being given many options: Street LinksMike Arsenault · CBC News · Posted: Dec 05, 2025 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 12 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.This encampment on Mayfair Avenue is one of many the city of Winnipeg says it wants to dismantle. The city has previously said that as it clears the encampments, it’s helped residents relocate to housing. (Jaison Empson/CBC)As the City of Winnipeg starts to dismantle tent encampments under a new bylaw, some of the people living in those camps say they aren’t being offered other housing.New city regulations that came into effect last month ban encampments in or near certain public spaces, including schools, daycares and playgrounds.The city has previously said that as it clears the encampments, it’s helped residents relocate to housing.Gordon, whose full name CBC is not using to protect his identity, lived in an encampment near the Louise Bridge for months. He used to have an apartment, but after a fire there, he couldn’t find an affordable place to live.”I just kind of floated around friend’s places, couches,” he said.”You just start feeling like a burden, so you just start finding your own way out there, and that’s how I ended up at the camp.”Gordon lived in a homeless encampment for months before finding housing with help from St. Boniface Street Links. (Mike Arsenault/CBC)Gordon said he knew encampments were being taken down, but he didn’t know if, or when, the camp where he was living would be dismantled. So when the St. Boniface Street Links outreach group offered last week to help him find housing, he decided to take the opportunity.He wasn’t previously offered housing by outreach workers with the city who approached him at the camp, he says.”All [the outreach workers] offered me was to be put on a list.… That was the only sort of help I guess you could say I got.”Gordon said without housing options, the new rules will force people living in encampments to the outskirts of the city.”They’re just trying to hide the problem,” he said.”You’re not really fixing anything. You’re just moving the problem somewhere else.”Confusion about bylawSt. Boniface Street Links — a non-profit that helps people struggling with homelessness, addiction and mental health issues and does outreach work with people living in encampments —helped get Gordon into a private-market rooming house late last week.Street Links says it has housed more than 30 people since the city implemented the bylaw, with very little help from the city. Michelle Wesley, the organization’s housing and addiction community service administrator, said people living in encampments are confused about the bylaw, and aren’t being given many options for where they can go.”I’ve asked them, ‘Well, has anybody offered you housing? Who’s been there to visit you?'” she said.”Well, nobody’s really been there and no one’s offered … housing” at any point, she was told, even though some people had lived at the encampment for more than two years.Michelle Wesley is the housing and addiction community service administrator for St. Boniface Street Links. (Mike Arsenault/CBC)The city says it offers everyone in an encampment either shelter or housing options, but didn’t say how many have been housed versus sent to emergency shelters.But Wesley said some of the people living in encampments don’t even have income assistance, and would need that support before they could even consider transitioning into housing.“We want to see change, but there has to be a proper process. We can’t just jump the gun.”‘They are human beings, and they need housing’The encampment near Louise Bridge is in Coun. Ross Eadie’s Mynarski ward. He said the city and its outreach partner, the Main Street Project, are having trouble finding housing for people in the camps.”[The] bylaw enforcement side, well, you could say it’s working,” but housing the people in the camps isn’t, said Eadie.”They are human beings, and they need housing.”The City of Winnipeg is installing signs in spaces where encampments are banned. (Jaison Empson/CBC)Eadie wants to turn the Louise Bridge encampment space into a triage site that would have all the supports needed to transition from the camp into housing.”It would mean enforcement [of the bylaw] would have to go slower,” said Eadie.”Once the people have been housed that were there, you move another group in … you go through the whole triage, then you deal with the next 20 individuals.”Eadie said he’ll put forward a motion at city hall next week to get started on the triage encampment. In the meantime, he’s told bylaw enforcement officers to stay away from Louise Bridge encampment.WATCH | People evicted from encampments say they’re not being offered housing:Housing hard to find for encampment residentsA Winnipeg outreach team says it’s housed more than two dozen people from encampments since the city’s new encampment rules came into effect, with no help from the city. As the camps are being cleared out by city workers, some people living in them say they aren’t being offered housing.
Some Winnipeg encampment residents say they aren’t being offered housing as camps taken down
