The City of Peterborough has evicted the residents of an encampment on McDonnel and Rubidge Street following the opening of a new emergency shelter on Carnegie Avenue.

On the morning of August 27th, Peterborough Police Service officers and municipal by-law enforcement officers oversaw the destruction of at least a dozen tents after warning their residents a day prior that they were now considered to be trespassing on public property.

“They didn't even allow me time to pack my stuff,” said Daniel Burke, one of the evictees.

“They actually tackled me to the ground and gave me a trespass line, all because I said I wanted to pack my stuff,” he told Arthur.

Burke also alleges that he and his fellow encampment residents were not given proper notice of the eviction.

“They said they’d give us 24 hour notice,” he said. “They didn’t. They came yesterday at 3:30 in the afternoon, and they showed up at seven o’clock this morning.”

Red, who also lived at the encampment, told Arthur “they came to each tent—it wasn’t a personal written notice—and said…be out by 7 AM or you’ll be arrested.”

The temporary shelter, located at 161 Carnegie Avenue, is being operated by the Brock Mission and will offer 40 beds from 9:30 PM to 8:30 AM for a period of up to 90 days. The City of Peterborough website also states that it will serve as an overflow shelter for when others in the city reach capacity.

Beside an update to the Emergency Shelter page on the city’s website, the City of Peterborough has not formally informed the public of the shelter’s opening. The Brock Mission declined to comment when contacted about the opening of the shelter.

Ashburhnam Ward Councillor and Housing and Homelessness Co-Chair Keith Riel told Arthur he was only informed of the opening of the shelter at 10 AM on August 25th.

“It certainly would have been nice for both myself and councillor Bierk, who’s co-chair of housing and homeless, if we were included in the decision making, but we weren’t,” Riel said.

Town Ward Councillor and Housing and Homelessness Co-Chair Alex Bierk made his own stance on the issue clear.

“People are not using the shelter that we provide because it doesn't work for them,” he told Arthur.

“It was my understanding that the eviction took place very early this morning or last night, and this just speaks to my point, because the shelter in the north end isn’t going to be open until 8:30 or 9:30 I believe,” said Bierk.

“To me,” he added, “that’s a major gap; to move in with the eviction and not have any support staff on the ground helping people with their belongings, helping people access the support that they need.”

The City’s Parks and Facilities By-law states that “No person may, in a Park and without a permit issued by the Manager…erect or be within a structure, hut or tent.” 

In 2023, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the Waterloo Regionality’s eviction of a local encampment constituted a violation of Section 7 of the Charter of Rights—one’s right to “life, liberty and security of the person”—as the Regionality was not able to provide “adequate shelter” to those it had evicted due to a general lack of shelter beds.

The legal precedent set by this ruling means that, were Peterborough to enforce its Parks and Facilities By-law to evict an encampment without providing enough shelter beds for every single person evicted, it could be considered to be violating Section 7 Charter Rights of evictees.

Earlier this year, City council approved a recommendation for the provincial government to amend their Safer Municipalities Act to clarify what council said were “unclear standards” set by the Waterloo decision as to what exactly comprised “adequate shelter.”

Since the requested amendment was never made to the Safer Municipalities Act, the City of Peterborough has continued to open additional temporary shelter space prior to clearing encampments, in accordance with the city’s interpretation of the Waterloo decision’s requirement to provide “adequate shelter.”

In March and May of 2025, the city opened the Morrow Park building as a 30-bed temporary shelter space before evicting people tenting in encampments at Wolfe; Rubidge and McDonnell; and Simcoe and Bethune streets. As with the opening of the Carnegie shelter, the city did not provide formal public notice of the opening of the shelter space.

While those evicted on the 27th technically have somewhere else to go, Red and Burke both told Arthur that they were not given any indication of where to go when they were evicted.

Google Maps estimates the walking distance between the approximate location of the encampment and the Carnegie shelter at over one hour. None of the encampment residents Arthur spoke to reported being offered any help in getting to the shelter, let alone being made aware of its existence.

Red also spoke to Arthur about the costs associated with the eviction.

“The amount of time they’re standing around right now and the money that they’re spending to do so could have went towards so many more beneficial things for the homeless instead of ruining them,” she said.

Councillor Bierk expressed a similar opinion.

“It’s like we're using our most expensive tools in the toolbox, with public works, with the police, with our municipal by-law enforcement…it’s very expensive to set up short term shelters like this, much more expensive than if it was a more sustainable shelter system.”

This was not a mere financial matter, however; its emotional impact was undeniable for Burke.

“I lost stuff for my grandparents. I lost valuable stuff,” he said, “a couple sketchbooks that my mom bought me for my 50th birthday this year, just really important stuff that I was taking the time to pack nicely, at least.”

When he tried to gather his belongings before leaving the encampment, Burke was violently apprehended by city employees.

“I said ‘I’m going to keep packing my stuff,’ and they tackled me to the ground and put me in the cruiser and wouldn’t let me go up back to get my stuff,” he told Arthur.

Among the structures taken down by the city was a memorial to a resident of the encampment who passed away.

“A tent that she was in was taken down and the memorial was put there,” explained Red.

“There was no other tent put out, and that was her space. And they said the cop was ignorant about it, because last time they bulldozed this memorial too,” she said, pointing to an intact memorial in a secluded corner of the former encampment.

“It was disgusting, yeah, like nothing mattered, and you might as well take the flowers and take everything there, because we’re just gonna have them bulldoze down anyway. And I’m like, it’s a girl’s memorial, man, what do you mean? You're gonna bulldoze it? Yeah, they said.”

“I personally purchased two of the pots of plants. It means something, you know, maybe not to them, but it does to us,” she told Arthur.

As municipal by-law officers razed tents with a compact loader, spreading their residents’ belongings around, Red and Burke spoke to Arthur about the efforts of those living at the McDonnel encampment to clean up the location.

“We spent countless hours and efforts, particularly in this parking lot, from all the drug care for any garbage over the years and years of building, if you live, if you walk, this park, compared to any of the park in the city, this is the most clean, the most pristine part, and that was the efforts of these people, of us camping,” said Burke.

“We spent countless hours and efforts, particularly in this parking lot…if you walk around this park, compared to any of the parks in the city, this is the most clean, the most pristine part, and that was the efforts of these people,” he continued.

“If you just watch over time in the next few weeks,” Red added, “you’ll see a big difference, because now we’re not here. We kept it to a small area, we kept it clean, we kept it neat and tiny, we kept quiet.”

The City of Peterborough and Peterborough Police Services did not respond to Arthur’s requests for comment by publication.

With files from Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay, Evan Robins and David King.