Fire department report identifies 44 Saskatoon neighbourhoods with makeshift shelters

A report from the Saskatoon Fire Department says there were 44 neighbourhoods across the city with homeless people in makeshift shelters at the end of June.

The map accompanying the reports shows a heavy concentration in the downtown and along the riverbank. But assistant chief Yvonne Raymer said the findings should dispel any illusions that homelessness is strictly a downtown issue.

"Really, this is all over the city," she said in an interview.

"So if anybody thinks it's not in my neighbourhood, it is. It's just they're very good, some of them, about being very discreet about where they're staying."

Raymer said the department began tracking people living in unsafe and inadequate conditions in November 2021 and compiled reports that year, last year and this year.

She said the wake-up call came after COVID restrictions were lifted.

"Once we started engaging back with the public, we just started noticing something had changed in our city, that we had a lot of unhoused individuals who were living in inadequate conditions," Raymer said.

That first year revealed 116 shelters — "it was alarming to us" — a number that jumped to 512 in 2022. Raymer said the department will know in the coming weeks whether the 290 shelters identified at the end of June has gone up or down.

Judging by the workload of the fire inspectors looking at the living conditions, her suspicion is that it has continued to climb.

The fire department and police share information on calls to accurately assess what's happening on the street. They combine data on fires, overdoses, graffiti, needle pick-ups, vacant/boarded structures, property maintenance concerns and unhoused locations.

"This analysis identified key neighbourhoods being impacted the most," she said.

Those neighbourhoods include Pleasant Hill (42 makeshift shelters), followed by Mayfair, Riversdale, Caswell Hill, Meadowgreen, Massey Place and King George.

Raymer said the city is facing a complex challenge with no easy or clear path out. Police and fire inspectors have few options when interacting with people living in unhoused locations.

"Part of the issue is they have nowhere to take them. They can't arrest them — being addicted to drugs is not a crime," she said.

"If they're sitting somewhere and having a moment of psychosis, how do they decompress them? They have nowhere to take them. They don't have a stabilization unit. There is no supportive housing out there that's available."

The report goes to Saskatoon city council on Aug. 8.