Fire highlights risk of winter encampments in Ottawa

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The City of Ottawa estimates there are approximately 275 people living unsheltered in tents and makeshift dwellings, often on federal land outside municipal jurisdiction.

Published Jan 03, 2024 • Last updated 7 hours ago • 2 minute read

Ottawa firefighters put out a fire at a homeless camp on Tremblay Road on Wednesday. No one was hurt. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

There were no injuries from a fire at a homeless encampment in Ottawa on Wednesday, but the blaze again highlighted the risk for those living rough with cold weather approaching.

Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire at the encampment near the LRT tracks and Tremblay Road, a site the fire service has been frequently called to in recent weeks.

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The city estimates there are approximately 275 people living unsheltered in tents and makeshift dwellings in Ottawa, often on federal land outside municipal jurisdiction. But Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr thinks that number is just a fraction of the real total of people living rough in the national capital.

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Wednesday’s fire should be a wakeup call, she said.

“The issue is ballooning and we have to make sure these communities are safe and the surrounding communities are safe,” said Carr, who sits on the city’s emergency shelter task force. “It’s not even really cold here yet.”

In Calgary in December, three people died in a fire in a shed outside a home improvement store where they had been sheltering. Two individuals were killed and another was seriously injured in a fire at an encampment in Edmonton.

Carr believes Ottawa will soon have to consider temporary shelters such as tent-like sprung structures or the modular housing units already used in Gatineau, Peterborough and Kitchener-Waterloo.

“I think we really need to start looking at this. We’re simply not building enough units on time,” Carr said.

The city has 2,315 “households” — most often single applicants — on a waitlist for supportive housing, she said, while there are just 177 supportive housing units under construction.

On any given night Ottawa can muster between 1,800 and 2,000 shelter beds via social-service agencies such as the Shepherds of Good Hope and the Salvation Army and the city’s own beds in community centres and various other shelters.

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“We as a city always say we’ve got a place for people to sleep, but there’s always going to be people who choose to sleep in encampments because they’re afraid of things being stolen or the shelters aren’t open 24 hours a day,” Carr said. “So I think we really need to look at those mid-term solutions while we wait for longer-term housing to become available.”

Housing advocates such as the Alliance to End Homelessness oppose such stop-gap measures, calling them a Band-Aid solution to a problem in need of a permanent fix.

“Long term we want more permanent housing, and that’s what our partners and advocates want. I agree that,” Carr said. “But in the meantime we have to make the encampments safe.”

Ottawa firefighters put out a fire at a homeless camp on Tremblay Road on Wednesday. No one was hurt in the fire. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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