‘It’s much slower progress’: cold weather impacting city’s encampment enforcement

Three months into the city’s enforcement of homeless encampments and progress has gone cold. CTV’s Danton Unger explains why.

Enforcement of the city’s homeless encampments slowed down last month due to the cold weather.

During a weeks-long cold snap in mid and late January, temperatures plummeted as low as -38 C. Greg McPherson, manager of community development, said this prompted the city to be “cautious” with its enforcement efforts.

“The feedback we’ve received from the sector is that this is a matter of life and death for people who are occupying encampments during weather like this,” McPherson told the city’s community services committee on Tuesday. “So, we’re very cautious.”

Since mid-November, the city has prohibited encampments near playgrounds, schools, transit shelters, bridges and rail crossings.

McPherson said since the policy took effect, a total of 14 encampments deemed a high priority were actioned – meaning one or more of the following steps were taken: an outreach worker visited the site, signage was put up, or the site was cleared after it was determined to be vacant.

It’s a small increase over the 12 sites actioned as of McPherson’s last update at the beginning of January.

“It’s much slower progress,” Coun. Vivian Santos, chair of the community committee, told CTV News.

Santos said during the colder months, it can be difficult for city staff to find the encampments.

“January was a very cold month, and most of the time unsheltered residents will go seek shelter. They’ll either go to a 24-hour safe space or go into shelter space,” she said.

In addition to the actioned encampments, McPherson said 37 have been remediated, and 85 have been inspected by bylaw enforcement officers.

“We’re working very closely with the province on a number of encampments to try to house people from encampments as soon as possible,” McPherson told the committee.

Since the launch of Manitoba’s ‘Your Way Home’ strategy in January 2025, Minister Bernadette Smith (Housing, Addictions and Homelessness) said the city and the province have decommissioned 100 encampments and moved 170 people into transitional housing with wraparound supports.

She said all but three remain housed.

“Those are good numbers to start off with in its first year in inception, together with the City of Winnipeg, we’re making some good headway,” Santos said, though she believes the true test of the city’s encampment policy will come when the weather warms up.

“We do see more of an uptick of encampments showing up in the spring and summer because our residents don’t necessarily want to stay within the shelter system. They prefer to be living outside.”