Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 6, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba 160 Wyatt Rd. Winnipeg 204-666-1991 Email: axleautopart@gmail.com Monday-Friday 9am-6:30pm Saturday 9am-4pm Sunday 10am-2pm MANITOBA’S NUMBER ONE RATED DUCT CLEANING COMPANY Top Choice Award winner for Best Duct Cleaning in Winnipeg for the past three years UNLIMITED VENT & DUCT CLEANING FOR $ 199 95 (431) 688-5872 info@ultravac.net / www.ultravac.net Expiry Date: June 6, 2025 (204) 471-3878 Commercial • Residential Over 20 years in Pest control WHAT’S BUGGING YOU? Bedbugs Cockroaches Mice/Rats Squirrels Ants Wasps/Hornets My1stchoice@outlook.com SPECIAL OFFER 10% OFF Residential services when mentioning this ad. Expires May 31, 2025 Contact Shelley Promotions at 204-223-1159 or ShelleyOstrove@gmail.com to book your ad! Next publication June 10, 2025, Father’s Day! Support Your Local Merchants! 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For many of the people who live and work in those neighbourhoods, the return of camps is not only disheartening, it is prompting concerns the NDP may have bitten off more than it can chew on this file. The disappointment centres on expectations created in January with the release of Your Way Home, a multi-pronged program to relocate encampment residents to safer and more stable housing with a full array of health and social services. In a news release announcing the initiative, Premier Wab Kinew said “a 30-day timeline beginning in February … will see the government move one encampment at a time into housing, in- cluding 300 new social units that have been purchased and will be supported by non-profit organizations.” There are a series of implications in this statement. Fairly interpreted, news media and the general public are fully entitled to believe the premier promised at least 300 people would be moved out of encampments — allowing many of them to be fully cleared — and into social housing within the first 30 days of the program launch. That’s what the government said in its news release. But that’s not appar- ently what the government meant. The fine print from Your Way Home states government has a 30-day timeline from first contact with a homeless person to relocation in social housing. It also says encampments will be cleared if and when enough of the people who call them home can be convinced to relocate. At current count, 30 chronically homeless people have been moved into stable social housing. Housing, Addictions and Homeless- ness Minister Bernadette Smith said in an interview Monday she believes Your Way Home is on schedule. Smith said the problem is complex and it has proven difficult to find one kind of housing option that works for every homeless person. Although it’s still early days, Smith noted she is encouraged that all 30 people who have been relocated from the encampments or other temporary shelters have re- mained in their new surroundings. “One person housed is super import- ant and we’ve got to celebrate that,” Smith said. The minister is correct; this is a battle that will be fought one homeless person at a time and every person relocated long-term from the street to something more stable is a huge win. Still, without more effort to define what progress looks like on this file, the NDP government is likely to dash a lot of expectations and lose a lot of public support. Few quibble with the goals of Your Way Home, or the basic construct. The homeless need more than emergency shelter; longer-term housing along with mental health and addictions treat- ment, education, job training and other social services is more or less the approach everyone wants to take. However, homelessness advocates warned the province it did not have the available housing and social service capacity to undertake its ambitious agenda. Further, the province has been urged to invest significantly more money in supporting community organizations that are already working to support the homeless. Where does that leave Your Way Home? In desperate need of better messaging. This is a file that has suffered the burden of unreasonable expectations almost from the moment it became a signature pledge for the NDP during the 2023 provincial election campaign. You will remember that right out of the gate, Kinew promised his govern- ment would “end chronic homeless- ness” in Manitoba over the next seven years. Smith noted that this would mean permanently relocating about 700 people provincewide from emergency shelters and encampments to social housing over two terms. At this point, the government’s big- gest mistake may have been promising to “end chronic homelessness” and not just bring it under some form of control. This kind of political hyperbo- le recalls other foolish and ultimately unachievable claims. A 1999 election promise by NDP leader Gary Doer pledged to “end” hallway medicine. Over Doer’s time as premier, the province did dramatically lower the number of patients ware- housed on gurneys in ER hallways, but his government never ended the problem. The Kinew government may have fallen into the same trap. It’s not hard to imagine that, as Your Way Home brings more housing and supports online, it may come close to helping its target of 700 people. It’s also quite easy to imagine that even with that accomplishment, the problem of chronic homelessness will have grown much larger. Progress is not about hitting a pre- conceived number; it’s about making the problem smaller. And it’s not yet clear the NDP are going to be able to do that. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca Curb expectations on homelessness strategy DAN LETT OPINION PEDESTRIAN STRUCK, KILLED IN WEST END A pedestrian was struck and killed by a vehicle Saturday. The incident happened near the intersection of McPhillips Street and Notre Dame Avenue at about 10:30 p.m. The Winnipeg Police Service did not state the person’s age or gender in a news release Monday. A police spokesman said he could not release any more information when asked whether the incident was a hit-and-run collision. Police asked anyone with information or video related to the incident to call traffic division investigators at 204-986-7085. HIGH SCHOOL LOCKED DOWN OVER INCIDENT STURGEON Heights Collegiate briefly went into lockdown Monday afternoon as Winnipeg police officers responded to a “youth in distress.” In an email sent out by the St. James-As- siniboia School Division, officials said officers were called to the Ness Avenue high school at about 2:20 p.m. “for a report of a threats-re- lated matter involving a student.” “As a result, the school was initially placed into a lockdown for precautionary reasons and then, shortly thereafter, moved to a hold and secure,” the email, seen by the Free Press, said. The hold-and-secure was lifted at about 3:15 p.m. Police spokesman Const. Pat Saydak said the incident involved a “male youth in distress.” IN BRIEF ;