The Manitoba government is buying apartment buildings and plans to start clearing encampments next month as part of its long-term strategy to reduce homelessness.
Several buildings are being bought and renovated, and the province aims to partner with municipalities and community agencies to offer support services such as addiction treatment. Brandon is reportedly receiving $175,000 as part of the initiative.
“We’re going to work together and ensure that everybody has a place to call home, and importantly, that you have the addictions and mental health services to succeed in living with a roof over your head,” Premier Wab Kinew said Tuesday at a curling club near an encampment on a city riverbank.
The NDP government has promised to eliminate chronic homelessness — people who are unhoused for several months or more — in the next seven years. A major part of the plan to is remove the estimated 700 people living in encampments.
Starting in February, the government plans to hire people and partner with community agencies to designate enough available housing for everyone in an encampment, approach the people in the encampment, and get them to agree to leave within 30 days.
The aim is to repeat the process, encampment by encampment, until the areas are clear. Some 300 residential units are expected to be newly available in the coming months.
The government has hired Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud, chief executive officer at Siloam Mission, a charity that serves the unhoused, to quarterback the project. About $20 million will be spent over two years on the effort, in addition to other housing and mental health money laid out in the budget, Kinew said.
Some details of the plan remained unclear Tuesday, including the locations of the apartment buildings being purchased and whether removals from encampments would be strictly enforced.
The government is also promising more “flex funding” to help people get housing. That might mean a bus or plane ticket for someone in Winnipeg who needs to return to their home in another community, Kinew said.
The Opposition Progressive Conservatives said the government’s plan lacks details and does not acknowledge that there is a shortage of workers in the field.
(This report by Steve Lambert of The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025)
