Branching out: EPS take down encampments in west Edmonton green spaces

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Charred trees, a blue-lipped man passed out from a fentanyl overdose, an insulated floor under construction — all signed of humans trying to live “off the grid” in a pocket of woods in the shadow of Anthony Henday Drive.

It’s one the green spaces Edmonton is celebrated for — woods in the midst of a modern city, even in the industrial fringe. And until this week, it was an encampment home to a handful of unhoused.

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The Edmonton Police Service and City of Edmonton’s joint Encampment Response Team dismantled a cluster of encampments in woods near the industrial area of 184 Street and 105 Avenue this past week, after a fire was reported to Edmonton Fire Rescue Services.

The team found four separate structures with multiple open fire pits and piles of garbage and waste — but evidence of construction skill, with an insulated floor and a pre-fab truss that appeared ready to take the structure to a more traditional cabin construction.

The structures have been dismantled, and cleanup was expected to take several days, said an Edmonton police officer narrating a video shared on social media Friday, describing it as “a very frequently reoccupied encampment area” in the Poundmakers area, not far from Costco.

Drone footage from the site showed cars whizzing along the Henday nearby, and scattered remainders of human occupation.

“He was planning on building something better than just a tarp structure or a tent, building parts as well,” the video narrator said, noting reinforced wheels from wheelchairs, rolls of insulation, and spanking new two-by-fours.

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“He’s obviously planning on building something that was going to probably try to get him through the winter, instead of using the resources that the city provides him.”

Evidence of unattended fires included scorched trees, and there were propane tanks — and a man out cold, slumbering by a fire.

“We located a gentleman who had just recently used fentanyl passed out right beside his fire,” the narrator said.

Among simulated weapons and knives, police found a cattle prod — a device with general agricultural application but used on occasion by criminals to conduct electricity in a localized way to produce pain.

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Charges laid

“A 48-year-old male who was living at the encampment has a history of property-related crimes. He was arrested and charged with mischief over $5,000,” said a statement from Edmonton police.

Police also located a 33-year-old female who accepted access to the Navigation and Support Centre’s services.

“Both individuals have been provided housing referrals through the Human-centred Engagement and Liaison Partnership Unit (HELP),” the EPS statement read.

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EFRS spokesperson Rowan Anderson confirmed a fire call Tuesday, with evidence of people living in the area, at those co-ordinates.

Where a new pedestrian footbridge from Stony Plain Road near 148 Street crosses McKinnon Ravine to elegant ravine-view homes and apartments, the good life is overshadowed somewhat by signs of encampment detritus visible from the path — bundles of belongings scattered in the woods.

‘Ongoing crisis’

Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack looked over the site, and said encampment living is escalating over the past few years in every quadrant of the city.

“While there have been some good investments by the provincial government in things like increasing the number of shelter beds, and of the implementation of the navigation centre, what we need to actually meaningfully address this ongoing crisis, is actual housing,” Knack said.

“You can have all the shelter beds in the world, but people aren’t choosing to use them, and instead go into encampments like this. It’s a reminder that the permanent solutions are the things that we need the provincial government to be focusing on. They can’t only be focusing on the short-term pieces,” he said, acknowledging he’s been something of a “broken record” on a troubling topic.

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“We need them to step up and do their job, because when they don’t, this continues. This won’t be the last video we see. This will continue to be one of many videos. We’ll see another one next month. We’ll continue to get, as I do almost every week, calls and emails from folks about smaller encampments close by the green spaces that they live in,” Knack said.

“This is never going to end until there’s finally a detailed plan of action from the province on how they’re going to address this provincewide, because we know it’s not Edmonton-specific. We know this is happening now across the province, in large municipalities, small municipalities … the thing I keep coming back to is, how much longer do we need to wait for meaningful action to be taken by the order of government that has jurisdiction? We can keep filling in the gaps as we are, but it’s not going to solve this, because this is now common,” Knack said.

Knack walked with Homeward Trust during their Point In Time homeless counts last month.

He spent hours in Edmonton’s Chinatown talking to homeless people — newly unhoused, and some who had been without a proper roof for over three decades.

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“What really stood out for me was of the about 15 conversations I had, all but one regularly are choosing not to go to the shelters,” Knack said.

“It’s not due to a lack of space. There’s two things that I came away with, which is that a majority of those folks are choosing not to access those services for any number of reasons, and most of them were on the housing waiting list and have been on the housing waiting list for one or more years. The person who had been on the list for the longest that I spoke with that night had been on the waiting list for five years,” Knack said.

“So that’s the problem we need to fix, because until you get housing built, you might as well get ready to reprint the story a month from now, because it’s going to happen again.”

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