The Saskatoon Fire Department is urging residents to report encampments. Deputy Chief Yvonne Raymer says keeping an out can allow those in encampments to be connected to safe supports.

Raymer also says encampments exist in every Saskatoon neighbourhood. They can be reported through the City’s 24-hour Customer Care Centre.

She also says they don’t want people living in unsafe conditions pointing out that colder weather leads to risky heating sources and that in the last two months the Saskatoon Fire Department has responded to 90 encampment fires, and some came very close to being fatal.

And as for the idea of large, centralized encampments the Saskatoon Fire Department consulted with other municipalities that had allowed large tent cities to develop but that approach was revealed to become unsafe not just for the people occupying them but for surrounding neighbours.

Some of the issues which have arisen in other communities include fires and explosions, disease outbreaks, rodent infestations, soil contamination from human waste and chemicals, gang activity, human trafficking….to name a few.

And the fire department notes that sanctioning an encampment means municipalities become responsible for servicing the space with water, toilets, power and clean up. In Halifax the City dished out $1 million for clean-up of an encampment, almost three-quarters-of-a million on fencing, $300,000 on garbage clean up and almost $173,000 on site remediation.

The SFD currently has six inspectors devoted to clearing encampments and current response times for the encampment team are approximately one week and are prioritized according to levels of risks.