More than a dozen people advocating for residents living in the Berczy Park encampment near downtown Barrie were gathered just outside the grounds on Friday evening wondering if by-law enforcement would act on notices issued to several residents earlier in the afternoon.
As darkness began to take hold around 7:30 p.m. and no sign of by-law officers or police, some of the advocates felt if the notices were going to be acted on, it might not be until after the weekend.
Christine Naylor of Ryan's Hope said three residents, of which one was a couple, received notices they violated a municipal by-law for entering or remaining in a closed park and had until 6 p.m. Friday to correct the infraction.
Naylor said three other couples remained in the park but as far as she knew had not received notices from by-law officials.
"They are safe for now."
On Sept. 3, the city issued 21 bylaw infraction notices to individuals living in the park, giving them 72 hours to correct several infractions including placing debris on city property in contravention of the nuisance by-law, fouling the land by urinating and defecating, and camping within a public park, contrary to the parks use by-law.
On Monday, a city official in a statement to Barrie 360 said the majority of the individuals within the park accepted offers of shelter, but that the city planned to issue notices of trespass to individuals who did not identify any unique needs and continued to be in contravention of the city's by-laws. In addition to shelter, the city said the County of Simcoe arranged for temporary secure storage for personal belongings.
In an update Tuesday afternoon, the city confirmed some unhoused individuals had unique needs that the county and its contracted outreach provider were continuing to address.
"Those individuals have not been issued notices of trespass." the city stated.
The County of Simcoe is responsible for homelessness services in the region. County officials have said they opened 20 additional shelter beds within Barrie and utilized the motel voucher program to accommodate people asked to leave the Berczy encampment.
Naylor alleges threats have been made online against advocates supporting the encampment residents, and she is also worried about the safety of those who remain in the park.
"This has created such a divide in our community and now people's lives are in danger."
The County of Simcoe, in an email to Barrie 360 on Friday, said representatives from the Busby Centre have been accessing the needs of encampment residents daily. Barrie 360 also reached out to the county and city by email on Friday asking, among other things, if there was a timeline to reopen Berczy Park to the public, if there was a strategy to prevent another encampment from setting up in the park, what the encampment clean up had cost to date, if the city had sought legal advice before intervening to close the encampment, and if the city felt its actions to remove the encampment residents met legal requirements. The county said the city would be better suited to respond to the questions, but as of Friday evening, there had been no response from the city.
In January 2023, the Ontario Superior Court ruled bylaws banning homeless encampments on municipal property were unconstitutional if the number of homeless persons exceeded the number of available accessible beds in the region. In this case, the judge declined the Region of Waterloo's application to have tents removed from a property it owned in Kitchener.
In Barrie, the city has had many complaints related to encampments and there have been several fires in encampments this year, including two fires last weekend, one of which was at Berczy Park.
The public can track the number of people housed in shelters in Barrie and the region through a data dashboard managed by the County of Simcoe at: https://gisportal.simcoe.ca/arcgis/apps/sites/#/county-of-simcoe-data-portal
In spring 2023, Barrie City Council approved spending $1.65 million on various initiatives dealing with safety in the downtown and homelessness. This included an investment in a warming and cooling centre for vulnerable residents, family reunification services, enhanced breakfast and meal programs, and a shuttle program to end the release and drop off of prisoners who leave the Central North Correctional Centre (CNC) and are left at the Barrie bus terminal.
