Future uncertain for residents of bulldozed Regina homeless camp
The dwellings of around a dozen Regina residents experiencing homelessness were bulldozed after calls from the property owner.
“Feeling sad I guess, they’re tearing down half my home. But it happens,” Randy Netmaker, who lived at the encampment, told CTV News.
“They always push us Indians off to the side.”
Police, firefighters and a skid steer arrived at the encampment on the 1800 block of Halifax Street at around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Netmaker has lived at the encampment for around six months. In that time he’s tried to get regular housing, but he says the process has been difficult.
“Every time I apply for a place, they seem to refuse us, I don’t know why,” he said.
“Maybe if I was by myself, but I’ve got my kids here. So I can’t just get my own place and forget about my kids, they need a place to live too.”
Groups that work with the unhoused stood by to lend assistance to those displaced from their homes.
Shylo Stevenson, a spokesperson for Warriors of Hope, told CTV News that many of the residents were trying to access housing but were facing barriers.
“We do have three that have no place to go right now, so we have them temporarily housed by mobile crisis for the day,” he said.
“Social services, we’ve been advised, is in an emergency meeting to discuss this and help navigate people through the system again where we will probably encounter those same barriers. No I.D, no bank account, no physical address.”
Netmaker is one of the residents who has housing for the moment, but he doubts anything will change in the long term.
“They said they are going to put me up in a hotel, probably just temporarily until they sweep it under the rug again like last year,” he said.
“They said they were going to get a place for homeless people but they never did.”
Several dozen people are living outdoors in the downtown area. The Heritage Neighbourhood Association calls it a crisis.
"This morning was really disheartening," Wendy Miller, executive director of the association, said. "We consider these tents a part of our community and neighbourhood as well and we worry about these humans so it’s somebody’s father, somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s grandma, grandpa, kokum, moshum and they’re people."
By the end of the day, the site had been completely cleared. The former residents will spend a day or two at a hotel with an expectation that they find housing quickly.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.