After being removed last week, tents belonging to the unhoused have returned along a railway line running through Peterborough, Ont.
Last week the City of Peterborough and Canadian Pacific Railway police removed eight tents pitched near the train tracks on the outskirts of the downtown.
City councillor Keith Riel says an agreement between the city and the railway enabled the city to help move people tenting near the city’s 50 modular bridge housing units.
However, the tents returned this week, said Riel, co-chair of the city’s housing portfolio.
Riel notes the tents are pitched on right-of-way CP property, not the city’s land.
“That is the frustration and that’s what’s happening now is because of the weather, people have decided that they will go tenting as opposed to using our shelter system,” Riel said on Tuesday.
The modular housing units replaced a tent encampment at the Rehil Parking lot on Wolfe Street, near the railway line.
Riel says some of the individuals in the tents are now hindering efforts to help those in the modular housing community.
“They seem to migrate across and hang around and certainly it’s having an effect on our modulars, our community as a whole and the neighbourhood as well,” he said. “So it’s something we’re going to have to work through.”
CP Rail did not respond to requests for an interview.
Since August 2019, the city has a bylaw which prohibits tenting on municipal properties — a response to numerous tents pitched at Victoria Park in the downtown. Peterborough County followed suit as owners of the park.
A brief repreive of the municipal bylaw was in place last fall during construction of the modular homes.
Global News Peterborough spoke with two individuals who live in the tents. Both said they were served warnings last week. However, they say after living in the city for more than a year — and with nowhere to go — they feel this is “their home.”
Riel says municipal enforcement will be in contact with CP Rail to have the tents removed again.
