Draft Bylaw aims to manage people, activities on public property
Nobody wants to be unhoused: Hansen
City of Fort St. John staff has put together a collection of best practices and consolidated those into a suggested draft Parks and Open Spaces Bylaw, to deal with the issue of temporary overnight sheltering on public property in the city.
“It’s a human issue. Nobody wants to be unhoused,” said Mayor Lilia Hansen. “The right to shelter is why we’re looking at consideration of this bylaw.”
In July 2023, when council first looked at options to manage soft-sided temporary shelters in the city, the province and the Human Rights Commission strongly objected to the city’s plans. However, staff went ahead with their research into both the city’s current bylaws and how they can be used to manage these shelters.
“Staff did a deep dive into our current bylaws, and the current bylaws really weren’t adequate to address the requirements of this Notice of Motion,” Robert Norton, the city’s Director of Public Safety and Fire Chief told council on August 26.
After coming to the conclusion that the existing bylaws weren’t the best tool for this application, staff looked at other communities that have had success managing temporary overnight shelter and sought a legal opinion as to Fort St. John’s responsibilities as a municipality.
What they came up with was a suggested Parks and Open Spaces Bylaw, which attempts to address all sides of the situation and provide the city with tools to address community concerns and the needs of vulnerable people in the community.
The intention of the bylaw, Norton said, “is to regulate, prohibit and impose requirements respecting persons, property, things and activities in relation to public spaces.
“Typically, these bylaws that we’ve see that have success, prohibit temporary overnight sheltering in specific areas where there’s absolutely no overnight shelter,” he said.
Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Darrell Blades said, “We need a bylaw so that if we do end-up with a larger encampment, and we need to move it and we’re going to the court for injunctions to help us disassemble a camp, then we need a bylaw of some sort.”
Many of the bylaws staff looked at impose hour restrictions, so that people seeking overnight shelter can only do so between certain hours, such as 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
This poses challenges for city staff, who would have to go around all the areas where temporary shelters have been set up to make sure everyone is packed up and gone by the designated hour.
Norton said it’s also important to include provision for storage of collected belongings, if the city has to do a clean-up, instead of discarding the belongings, there would be a mechanism in place to enable people to collect their belongings.
Erin Ferris, Community Safety Manager spent time last week with BC Housing officials, talking to most of the 20 people who are camping in various locations around the city.
“These are people who are sleeping outside by choice,” Ferris said. “There are beds available in the shelter.”
Blades added that the people who are sleeping outside, have lived in Fort St. John for several years, if not their entire lives. Those who have come here from other communities, such as Prince George, came because they believed Fort St. John to be a safer community than where they came from.
Staff looked at all the city-owned properties and excluded recreation areas and neighbourhood parks from consideration. That left community parks as possible spots to not prohibit temporary overnight sheltering.
For the safety of people seeking to set up temporary overnight shelter as well as residents, city staff examined each of the community parks to assess the fire risk, which includes spacing between shelters of five metres; four metres from a sidewalk, footpath, road or bike path; 10 metres from residences; eight metres from playgrounds, sports facilities, public art, benches or picnic tables; and 50 metres from a school or daycare.
Although are close to amenities used by the vulnerable population in Fort St. John such as the foodbank, Centennial Park has very few spots that meet the criteria; and Toboggan Hill Park has a few areas that are more than 10 m from houses. Kin Park and Fish Creek have sufficient space, but are far from downtown, and Fish Creek has a higher level of risk in the city’s Fire Plan.
The parks that are most popular with the city’s unhoused, are Matthew’s Park and the Dog Park/Toboggan Hill Park, said Ferris.
Matthew’s Park is unique in that it’s a big park that meets a lot of the criteria in the suggested bylaw, and there are no residences whose property lines join the park.
The other popular area is the road right-of-way near Wal-Mart between 89 Ave. and 92A St., where a lot of people are camping right now, Blades told council. Camping is not permitted on road allowances, he added. If camping is allowed on one right-of-way, that would open up all roads in the community as potential sites.
Councillor Byron Stewart who, along with Hansen was not in favour of the city’s parks being used at all, suggested if staff could find a way for this particular right-of-way to be set aside, as there are already people set up there, who are not disrupting the community, he would be in favour of that option.
“We can seek a legal opinion as to whether we can do that, and possibly use that as a spot,” Blades said.
However, Blades noted that if the city designates an area for camping, then its obligated to provide water and other requirements around basic human rights.
“The recommendation is that we prohibit camping in a large number of parks, and then not specifically not prohibit a couple of others,” Blades said. “What we’re not saying is it’s allowed here, what we’re saying it that it’s not prohibited.
Councillor Gord Klassen also expressed reluctance to not prohibit temporary overnight shelter in residential areas.
“I would prefer, if we had space, to have them housed in more commercial areas, as opposed to residential areas where you have a lot more kids riding bikes, and kids out playing, and just some of those perceived disturbances,” said Klassen.
“Council can choose to prohibit all parks, and then there’s nowhere for this group of unsheltered people to go. We are engaging with the province, and we had BC Housing doing a homeless assessment last week. We’ve had discussions with BC Housing and other agencies about another shelter within the city, one that would probably be a no-barrier shelter, which might take some of these people that are tenting.”
The Salvation Army currently operates a low-barrier shelter on 99th Avenue in the city, as well as the transitional housing facility next door.
Addressing social, housing and poverty issues is the responsibility of the provincial government, but Hansen feels that the province is putting these issues at the feet of the municipality and telling city officials to figure it out themselves.
“I feel our hands are being tied by the province and the Human Rights Commission,” she said. “I’m not in favour of our parks being used, we have families and our residents that look forward to that quality of life.
“At the same time, I know it’s a struggle, where do we house people? That doesn’t diminish the problem that’s there, people need somewhere to live. I wish the province would step up more to the table to offer some solutions.
“A no-barrier shelter by BC Housing? I’m not in favour of adding more of that to our community,” she said. Hansen added that she would like to see action from the province and information on why there is so much homelessness, as not all unhoused people are struggling with addiction.
“It’s very challenging,” Norton acknowledged. “A lot of this is provincial mandate and outside of our circle of influence.”
The information gathered from council will allow staff to come back with an amended sample bylaw very soon, Norton added.