City of Sarnia cleans up Rainbow Park after homeless encampment clears out
More work still to come, city says
The City of Sarnia says it has cleaned up the garbage and discarded needles in a park that was recently the site of a prolonged homeless encampment.
City council voted in January to clear the encampment at Rainbow Park.
The last few people left voluntarily on Feb. 20, said Steve Henschel, communications manager for the city.
Since then, the city has also disinfected the playground equipment, with plans for more improvements in the coming weeks.
"We're going to take all the sand that's the base for that playground out and put in engineered wood fibre, repair some fencing, and there was also some damage to the grass in the park from vehicles coming and going," Henschel said.
"So we're going to repair those ruts and reseed."
Complaints from residents
More than 80 people were camping in Rainbow Park last summer, Henschel said.
Residents of the surrounding area complained bitterly to city officials about open drug use, needles in schoolyards and people defecating in public spaces.
The population of the encampment dwindled as the cold weather set in, Henschel said.
A number of organizations worked to find shelter for those camped out, said Myles Vanni, executive director of the Inn of the Good Shepherd, which operates two emergency shelters and several other services for people in need.
"We brought some people into shelter," he said.
"Everybody's working together to find supports and places for these folks to go."
After the campers moved out of the park, the city called in a contractor to run magnets over everything, test playground sand and rake everything, Henschel said.
"Overall, people are very happy," he said of the residents in the surrounding area.
"It was obviously a big impact for that neighbourhood to have the park kind of occupied in that manner."
It's not yet clear what will happen when the weather warms up again, Vanni said, because some people, when possible, prefer the freedom and sense of community that comes with sleeping outdoors.
Vanni said new provincial funding for Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs may be a "light at the end of the tunnel" when it comes to addressing the epidemics of poverty and opioid addiction that have contributed to the surge in homelessness.
"That will create those high-need … supportive housing opportunities for people with mental health and addictions," Vanni said.
"That opportunity coming into the community in the next while is going to be very beneficial."