Garbage buildup at encampments create challenges for Winnipeg: report
A Winnipeg city councillor is pushing for the garbage piling up at homeless camps to be cleared, but a report notes weekly garbage pickup could cost the city $4 million a year.
The encampment on the riverbank off Assiniboine Avenue is full of debris, and there was even a fire here.
"Just visually, it's very negative,” said Paul Leonard, who walks on the river path daily.
He wishes something could be done to keep these sites free of garbage.
"For their sake, for our sake, for visitor’s sake, for law enforcement's sake."
Coun. Vivian Santos asked the city's public service to come back with a report on what it would take to do regular encampment cleanups.
She said there are times camps are abandoned but by the time the city can remove the tents, couches and garbage - others have already moved in.
“So what has happened is you're getting a cumulative of more debris and more large bulky waste,” said Santos.
That report to the mayor's Executive Policy Committee is in. It says in 2023, upon request, the city did 162 clean ups, at a cost of nearly $84,000.
But, to do biweekly garbage collection, that would cost $2 million per year. Weekly collection would be $4 million per year
Mayor Scott Gillingham said he's looking forward to the discussion and debate on the numbers.
“Encampments can be dangerous, they can frankly be unsightly, and for people that live in proximity to an encampment there are concerns,” said Gillingham.
The report also stated the Main Street Project has proposed a pilot project with Siloam Mission and the Downtown Community Safety Partnership to pick up garbage at encampments.
But everyone agrees the long-term solution is not hauling away trash - it’s helping people get a real home, not a tent on the riverbank.
“A place to go, a place to be,” said Leonard.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Auston Matthews to miss second straight playoff game with Toronto Maple Leafs facing elimination
Auston Matthews will miss the Maple Leafs' must-win Game 6 against the Boston Bruins.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.