‘City sees slight increase in encampment related concerns:’ encampment response update

The city’s Encampment Response Team presented an update to city council this afternoon on the encampment issue in Lethbridge. There has been a slight increase in the number of encampment reports made to the city, and officials believe this is because the temperatures cooling down. Eric Foster, an Encampment Support Specialist with the city says they are seeing many of the calls coming from the Northside of the city.   

“It includes encampments as well as debris. And some of the correlation that we’ve noticed is that actually seems to be revolving around donation bins. So particularly around like the Northwood Walmart, that area, a lot of that debris is coming as a result of those bins. The low level of Entrenchment continues despite the increase in reports. We are is seeing that the compliance level is slowing a little slightly due to the cooler temperatures.”

From September 11th to October 13th, there have been 130 encampment related calls made to the city making the year to date 377.