09/11/2026
We are often reminded that Northstar has a responsibility to be mindful of our impact on the surrounding community and to contribute to community safety. We take that responsibility seriously.
But community safety must not be placed solely at the doorstep of a shelter.
Once again, people experiencing homelessness are being displaced from encampments. These are people who have already been displaced—out of their homes, onto the streets, into encampments, and now out of those encampments and back onto the streets - where businesses, children and neighbours reside.
We have been clear to these decision makers about what happens when people are repeatedly moved without somewhere safe and appropriate to go. Spending thousands of dollars on displacing people does not resolve homelessness, addiction, mental illness, trauma, or poverty. It simply moves people—and the challenges they are experiencing—from one place to another, often more visible.
When people lose even the limited stability an encampment provides, they become more visible throughout the community and often more vulnerable. Their belongings are displaced. Their routines are disrupted. Their mental health declines. Their connection to supports becomes more difficult. And the pressure on shelters, outreach teams, businesses, police, health services, and the broader community increases. Not to mention, people die. We’ve witnessed it first hand as a result of buildings being condemned in 2023 and 2024.
For years we have repeatedly raised these concerns because we know what comes next.
And when the predictable consequences occur, Northstar is too often expected to answer for them—despite having no involvement in the decisions that created the displacement or the negative impacts it creates on the community.
Our involvement is advocating against displacing people without alternative options, and trying to keep people safe afterward.
We cannot continue moving people from place to place and expect a different outcome. If community safety is truly the goal, decisions affecting people experiencing homelessness must include realistic alternatives, appropriate supports, and somewhere for people to actually go.
Something has to give.
We need solutions that reduce homelessness—not solutions that simply relocate it.
The Town of New Glasgow says woodland management work aimed at reducing wildfire risk will begin Monday, September 14, on Town-owned land near the Ward One Community Centre and surrounding area.
The work is expected to continue periodically through the end of September and will involve thinning woodland, removing invasive species such as Glossy Buckthorn, and processing brush into wood chips for power generation.
However, the area is also home to a homeless encampment, meaning dozens of people without permanent housing are expected to once again be displaced as the work gets underway.
Residents may notice equipment accessing the area from Vale Road, near the opposite side of Reddick Lane. The Town says a temporary roadway and brush piles will also be present within the work area.
While most of the woodland thinning is expected to create minimal noise, the Town says wood chipping will result in increased noise while that portion of the work is underway.
The Town says the work is part of its ongoing wildfire risk reduction efforts based on FireSmart principles.
Following the work, the Town plans to restore the area during the next growing season with predominantly native trees and plants, including red oak and red maple.
The announcement comes as questions remain about where people living in the encampment will go while the work is carried out, with the project expected to once again disrupt an already vulnerable population.
