When Ron Fellinger steps outside of his business, Fellinger & Son’s Meats, he can’t help but think of how Regina’s Heritage neighbourhood has changed in the last 50-some years.
“This park used to be a park for children to come and play. They played soccer, they played baseball,” he said, adding he’s worked in the area since the 1960s.
“You don’t see anyone anymore … this is supposed to be a public park.”
An encampment in Pepsi Park has steadily grown through the summer, from a few tents earlier in the year to an estimated 150 people sleeping in about 70 tents now.
The neighbourhood has been home to previous tent encampments, which have been torn down by the city in the past. But the City of Regina has pivoted to what it describes as a more person-centred approach, focusing on providing outreach support to help people get better shelter.
Homeless encampment deters customers, Regina business says
Businesses were recently invited to a meeting with city representatives to share their concerns, but Fellinger said he didn’t attend, not having faith that his views would be heard. He said customers are turned off from coming into the store, seeing some of the societal dysfunction unfolding outside.
He disagrees with the city’s approach in allowing the encampment to stay up.
“They’re enabling these people, and there are going to be more and more people like [this] coming to the neighbourhoods in Regina,” he said, adding tents don’t belong in residential areas.
Jarrid Linder, service manager at Downtown Automatic Transmission, said his business has also seen more break-ins as the encampment grew.
“In the past probably two or three months, we’ve changed 17 windows on customers’ vehicles from break-ins,” he said.
“It’s kind of a free-for-all out there.”
Businesses in Regina’s Heritage neighbourhood raise concerns about encampment
The city has provided portable toilets at the site, but advocates and volunteers are saying people in the camp need showers, storage and power.
“To be clear, the services here are a very incredibly low-bar right now. We need a lot of help,” said advocate and volunteer Shawn Koch.
He added that no one chooses to be without a home, but treating people with dignity goes a long way to improving their circumstances.
“When we’ve written off an entire group of people and dehumanize them in such a way, all it really takes is just a little bit of human contact and mutual respect, and you can see people growing and getting better,” Koch said.
There’s been a benefit to having people gathered in one spot, being able to implement rules against stealing each other’s property and checking that no one overdoses, he said.
Showers and toilets are ways to protect people’s dignity, Koch added, comparing this to Saskatoon’s approach, which has been to dismantle encampments over concerns about safety risks for users and the risk of catastrophic fires.
Regina city councillor Victoria Flores, who represents the area, spearheaded Tuesday’s meeting with business representatives, inviting people to share what they’ve been seeing and hearing.
The Heritage neighbourhood has long grappled with issues of housing insecurity and poverty, she acknowledged.
“But, of course, there’s a heightened feeling of maybe safety-related issues,” she said.
Flores said she was heartened to hear people expressing concerns not just for themselves, their businesses and customers, but also for the people living in encampments.
“I think what is clear is nobody wants to live in an encampment and no one wants to have an encampment around it, right?” she said. “What we need to do is find solutions that provide dignity and safety for everybody involved.”
Both Koch and Flores said other levels of government need to step in to make housing more readily available, while also providing addictions treatment and mental health supports.
“The solution there is finding housing with wraparound supports that meet people where they’re at,” Flores said.
Permanent housing is the dream for encampment residents like Nevada Adams.
The 31-year-old has been on the streets for a year, trying to stay warm and dry in all kinds of weather, from –50 C in winter to the hard rain of last weekend.
Over the past few weeks, Adams said he’s been working to get identification so he can be put on a housing list. In the meantime, he’s been doing his bit to keep the camp clean of garbage and debris.
“The people that don’t have it rough like this, [they] tend to look down on us. But they don’t see what they go through, they don’t see the battles we go through,” Adams said.
“They have no idea what it’s like.”
