Guelph council to reconsider by-law that would limit encampments on city-owned land

Guelph City Council will be debating a draft by-law that would limit the location of homeless encampments, for a second time.

The original draft was presented to council in February but promptly shelved after a similar by-law in Kingston, Ont. was ruled unconstitutional by the Ontario Superior Court.

It’s being brought back amid growing concerns about encampments taking over public spaces, preventing residents from enjoying those spaces.

The by-law primarily focuses on what the city has deemed “sensitive areas” or “bookable places” such as sports fields, public gazebos and other areas of common use. The hope is it will strike a balance by allowing unhoused individuals to find a place to pitch their shelter while also allowing the public to use that space without the fear of harassment, discarded drug paraphernalia or trash.

Municipal lands would be split into three categories. The first would allow encampments where tents and shelters are permitted at any time. The second would allow for tents to be pitched overnight with the condition they are removed in the morning. The third would be what Mayor Cam Guthrie calls “no-go zones” or areas where tents are not permitted.

When broken down, only about 10 percent of municipal lands would fall in the latter two categories, leaving 90 percent of municipal land open for encampments.

Guthrie told The Mike Farwell Show there needs to be some way for the city to manage the encampments.

“Right now, in the absence of a public space by-law, it’s a free-for-all. There’s no book ends. There’s no regulations. There is no way of regulating this issue,” he said. “This is a very permissible by-law.”

Some advocates said that banning or limiting encampments in anyway infringes on people’s human rights and criminalizes homelessness.

Guthrie said that is not the case.

“This (the by-law) is not written in that way. Nor is it meant to act in a criminalization way. I’m not going to buy into that rhetoric at all. I think public spaces should be for everyone and so I think this by-law is important that we set some sort of parameters on how public spaces are used.”

Guelph council will consider the draft at its meeting on Aug. 28.