Steady growth of Regina tent community draws concern from mayor
Regina’s mayor has given agencies roughly two weeks to find housing for residents of a tent community in Pepsi Park before the city starts looking at putting an end to the camp.
Conditions have gotten colder for the two dozen homeless people living in tents in Pepsi Park.
“The city doesn’t support or endorse a tent city on public property. We do however have an obligation to keep people safe, both those in the encampment as well as the surrounding neighbourhoods,” Sandra Masters said.
Contributing factors to homelessness are complicated and one tent community resident told CTV News some at the camp have turned to drugs to dull the pain in their lives. An emergency task force has been deployed to the scene comprised of social workers, police and fire.
On Wednesday city council approved a partnership with the federal government to build an $8 million supportive housing complex for 29 people experiencing homelessness. However, it won’t be ready for this winter.
Two government-funded buildings intended for supportive living sit vacant including one in south Regina and another on Fifth Avenue due to a lack of a social agency to operate them.
So far, the government has relocated nine people from the camp to hotels or shelters and 17 residents have opted not to leave.
“If people either have a mental health, addictions issue, they’re suffering intergenerational trauma or have certain kinds of disabilities, oftentimes that may translate into a distrust of service providers,” Louise Michaud, assistant deputy minister of Social Services said.
Social Services said it is working to build trust with community members before time runs out.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
BREAKING Roy McMurtry, former Ontario attorney general, dies at 91
CTV News has confirmed that former Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry has died.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.