Pay it forward: City contemplates charging Province for social street issue costs
By Timothy Schafer Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The City has a $145,000 hole in its budget.
Temporary shelters that were set up in front of City Hall — beginning earlier this year in March — have amounted to a $145,139 cost to municipal government, and the bill is going to be sent to the Province.
City council deferred a motion until its next business meeting, agreeing that costs associated with the encampment outside of City Hall — and the cleanup of the Government Road camp recently — were significant, necessitating reimbursement from the Province.
The amount would restore the City’s ability to finance its daily operations as originally budgeted. There were many areas within the City’s budget that were in need of this kind of funding, said Coun. Jesse Woodward.
“We need to spend this kind of money in our community, dealing with our community’s needs,” he said. “This was totally unforeseen but we had to deal with it …because there were so many issues.
“The Province needs to recognize that encampments are costing municipalities a lot of money which we have not budgeted for.”
Coun. Rik Logtenberg had trouble supporting the resolution, even though he admitted a lot of the social street issues fall under Provincial jurisdiction.
“But this doesn’t feel particularly constructive, I mean, the language that ‘it unfairly burdened Nelson taxpayers,’ … it’s a complex issue and it’s not fair to anybody,” he said.
He said encampments are happening all over the world, and it is not just an issue of the rising cost of housing, and not isolated to Nelson. There is a belief that encampments are going to be a permanent part of society, and there is a lot that can be done to make encampments better.
“So if we developed policy and systems and funding for creating and supporting encampments in general while they exist,” it would be more constructive, said Logtenberg, “rather than saying ‘This is your fault and here’s the bill.’”
Mayor Janice Morrison said the Provincial government — in her discussions with them — does not acknowledge encampments.
“So that is why we have taken, here in the City, the model of housing first,” she said. “And our role has been to have constructive and fruitful discussions with B.C. Housing and government in terms of doing proper housing.”
Morrison said in her conversations with other levels of government she has asked about Provincial policy regarding encampments.
“And I have very clearly heard the message that they don’t want to start the process of sanctioning encampments because they do then become permanent and then it gets harder to get people to move into more permanent housing to meet their needs,” she said. “That is my concern.”
Logtenberg said the wording of the motion should be “as long as the encampments exist,” so we can be seen to be working toward making them go away.
“Nevertheless, there will be people who choose not to have the housing and will set up encampments,” he said. “They are here now so we can choose to ignore them, or respond in an ad hoc way, or we can accept the reality and work to make this better for everybody.”
He urged the development of policy to support encampments.
In March 2024, temporary shelters were set up in front of City Hall to protest the HUB closure, a scenario that quickly developed into an encampment where “vandalism, public drug use and safety concerns for staff and the public, sanitation issues, disputes and public mischief that required emergency services response developed,” noted a City staff report.
“This created a significant and unforeseen financial burden for the City, which was not accounted for in the budget,” the report read.
The meter is running
The increasing number of homeless encampments in B.C. municipalities has led to substantial additional expenses across the province, putting pressure on municipal budgets and straining resources.
While municipalities play a role in managing these issues, there is an apparent need for more support from federal and provincial levels of government to tackle the underlying causes of homelessness and create sustainable, long-term solutions.
“Without this assistance, municipalities will continue to experience growing financial challenges, making it harder to sustain public services and infrastructure,” noted City deputy corporate officer Sonya Martineau in her report to council.
To address the safety concerns arising out of the encampment cluster that formed in front of City Hall, the City hired security for business hours, which increased to 24-hour coverage on weekends and holidays to mitigate vandalism and safety issues.
As a result, the encampment drew significant City financial resources, including legal, police, fire services, sanitation and bylaw enforcement.
Source: City of Nelson
If no Provincial funds are forthcoming, costs associated with managing and cleaning up the encampment will need to be funded from other sources, a City staff report noted, such as surplus funds or by reducing costs in other departments.
Although several B.C. municipalities have sent in similar requests, it was not known if any other communities have received money.
Logtenberg wondered which department the City would send the bill to, and would there even be money coming back to the City. City manager Kevin Cormack said the step to send the resolution had to be taken.
“It is incumbent upon local governments to let the Province know what costs we are incurring for these things,” he said. “And it is reasonable to ask that we are reimbursed for the costs.”
But that was his point, Logtenberg countered. If the City did not expect to get the money back, it’s not really about the money.
“So it’s a statement, ultimately building the case for more provincial responsibility — more provincial funding and support — for this, in the future,” he said. “Given that fact, it would be better to wrap this up and maximize that outcome.”
The resolution needs to come with a constructive ask, Logtenberg added.
“If we are going to make a point, we need to make a point as well as we can and maximize the chance that we actually get something out of it,” he said.
He said there needed to be some background research and material on what costs were incurred, and how it could be avoided in the future.
