Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall, the City of Barrie and the Barrie Police Service will head to court to defend their decisions of declaring a state of emergency regarding tents and encampments. A lawsuit against them argues Barrie’s efforts to clear encampments went too far. Dannielle Laundry, an unhoused woman, claims the city forced people from their tents despite a shortage of shelter spaces, which she says violates constitutional rights. CTV News has obtained court documents that show she is now taking legal action against the City of Barrie, its mayor and the Barrie Police Service. According to the County of Simcoe and CTV News reporting, all 44 people at the Mulcaster Street encampment received support. Related: Barrie, Ont. workers dismantle downtown encampment amid state of emergency Court documents show Laundry and her partner accepted shelter in Collingwood. After two weeks in Collingwood, she returned to Barrie declining further support because of the distance from services. The statement of claim also refers to her physical and mental well-being, leading to an increased risk of physical harm and mental health degradation due to services no longer being available or easily accessible. Laundry is arguing for the courts to halt encampment evictions until the shelter shortfall is addressed. She is also looking for damages from the city, mayor and police service. “Ms. Laundry is going to court to stop the City of Barrie, its mayor, and its police from using a state-of-emergency and by-laws to ban unhoused people from city property and prohibiting them from setting up a tent or any form of temporary shelter,” Laundry’s lawyer Mani Kakkar said in a statement to CTV News. “Barrie has a significant shortfall of shelter beds. In a snowstorm, a heat wave, or during a thunderstorm, hundreds of unhoused persons in Barrie, like Ms. Laundry, are left outside with no shelter,” Kakkar said. “Ms. Laundry claims that the defendants are making it nearly impossible for unhoused persons to exist in Barrie at all. This is blatantly unconstitutional,” added Kakkar. Nuttall said he is not surprised by the request for injunction as similar cases have been filed. “We’ve seen in Waterloo Region and Toronto and Kingston and Hamilton and others that have faced similar measures, similar matters - it’s probably to be expected,” said Nuttall. “I think for me, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing, which is following the letter of the law and removing encampments.” He added a statement of defence will be coming shortly before a court date. “I’ll leave court to the lawyers. They will work through this piece by piece. What we’ve done is we’ve followed the letter of the law to the T to ensure that those supports have been offered, to ensure that there’s opportunities to get out of this lifestyle of living on the side of the streets,” said Nuttall. According to the city’s website, there are 705 people who identify as homeless as of Aug. 4. There are two known encampments on city property and 209 encampments (one tent or more) have been addressed since Sept. 9 of last year. According to the County of Simcoe, 232 people were in shelters on the night of Sept. 7. There are 229 beds in shelters operated by the County, 129 people spent the night in a hotel. CTV News did reach out to Barrie police and the City of Barrie regarding the statement of claim and both referred CTV News to the Mayor’s office. The first court date is on Oct. 2. None of the allegations have been proven or tested in court.
