District of Squamish staff are proposing $580,000 in 2027 spending for bylaw enforcement, support for a BC Housing temporary housing program and a new community safety plan. These items are pending council endorsement and have not been approved. The proposal will be disucssed at a council meeting this Tuesday.
The requests appear in the 2027–2036 general fund budget report going to council on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
The largest ongoing request is $259,000 for two bylaw enforcement positions. Staff say the added capacity would help the District respond to complex issues involving encampments, homelessness and community safety.
A further $121,000 is proposed for costs associated with BC Housing’s Homeless and Encampment Response Temporary Housing, or HEARTH, program. According to the budget report, the money would cover expenses related to a site lease, cleanup and maintenance. A project description in the report says the housing site is likely to be on privately leased property; it does not identify a confirmed site.
Staff are also seeking $200,000 to develop a multi-year community safety plan. The proposed work would build on the District’s existing encampment response plan, identify gaps in services and set priorities for addressing street disorder, homelessness and community safety. Staff propose consulting Indigenous partners, community organizations, businesses, first responders, health providers and residents.
Together, the three requests would increase the District’s 2027 general tax revenue requirement by an estimated 1.1 percent, or about $35 for the average residential taxpayer, according to the report. That figure describes the budget estimate for these proposals; it is not the final change to any individual property tax bill.
Council is being asked to decide which proposed service changes and projects staff should include as they prepare the 2027–2036 financial plan. Inclusion at this stage would not amount to final adoption of the budget.
The encampments should not be anywhere near residential areas. They should be somewhere flat with no trees and away from the town. We are losing alot traffic in town because people are scared to walk and around and explore our town. These are mostly drug addicts created by our local governments. More and more drug addicts are coming to Squamish. Residentials are fed up and need to stand together. Vote for someone who can help rather than someone voted in and just talk and no action.
I’m afraid I have to agree with anonymous. I live downtown and hate it. I no longer feel safe in my building or in my community. I am forever looking over my shoulder and never go out at night. They have found their way into our bike room to charge their e bikes and last night a resident caught them in our visitor parking changing the oil in their pick up.
I honestly think its nothing but the worst attitude and stuck up the comments you people are scared of what , theres isn’t 1 single reason or example or situation where an addict has ever brought any harm to anyone , u all being very judgemental and stuck up ,
Drug addicts have always been here I’ve been here for over 27 years there is drug addicts everywhere in this Provence drug addicts or putting them out of site so some rich snobs can infiltrate this town is not the answer if your scared to walk around get out out more maybe you shouldn’t be so stigmatic and give people a chance you may be surprised maybe volunteer at helping hands for a couple days a week and first hand see how these so called drug addicts live day to day find out why what trauma they live with day to day that they seek out drugs to numb themselves in stead of hiding behind you anonymous name and speaking out bulls**t hating on people because they may be poor and have an addiction and probably mental health issues and have to live daily with ignorant people calling them down . No for residents fed up how about residents that are born and raised here fed up with all these rich snobs flooding there town raising cost of living pushing them out then telling them to go to our of residential area and calling them drug addicts
Exactly!
Encampments should be somewhere out of town? Are you serious. No what should happen is we should actually take action on preventing homelessness and take charge in accepting people where they are at and actually follow through with some god damn community assistance. Ever think of that? Or maybe getting off your high horse and lending a hand?
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1J6pnNFt7t/
This is kinda old, but, relevant?
$130,000.00 per Officers??? That is more than fully trained police officer receives after completion of training, Who are we kidding on this entire budget request, not me.
Why downtown? Looks more and more like crazy people are in charge. Best thing about getting old is pretty soon I won’t have to look, talk and be beyond frustrated that the problem is never going away without institutionalizing / incarcerating the handful who make us mad at all the poor souls who live on the streets as a whole . No doubt having the countrys biggest open for exploitation sign on the door at help your self hand. Bussing em in . Pitch a tent charge your phone and boom box. Here’s a hot meal let us wash your clothes, oh you threw them away? We have lots from the bleeding hearts. No secret. We know who the trouble makers are. Ga bing ga bang. End of story. So frustrating. Pretty sure we all have better things to do than endure a few wing nuts running amuck. Think I was born a couple hundred years too late. Shit like this would get sorted out real quick.
Lending a hand? You mean stick your hand out so it can get bit? $580.000 for an encampment? How bout take that money and move it where the general population that is done with putting up with the fallout, can have some relief?
To Mayor Hurford, Council, and staff:
Homeless encampments must not sit in dense downtown and high-traffic areas that harm residents, workers, businesses, and visitors. That is not a rejection of people in crisis. It is a demand that the District stop treating sidewalks, parks, and commercial streets as the default housing, health, and addiction system. People who are unhoused need a real continuum of care. The public also has a right to safe streets. Those two facts are not opposites. They are the same test of whether government is doing its job.
Do not surrender downtown Squamish while waiting for a site that still has no confirmed address. The $580,000 proposal for 2027 is not a solution by itself. It is a local holding cost for a provincial and federal failure. Use it only as leverage to force indoor alternatives, enforceable site rules, and cost recovery from anyone dumping people here.
What the $580,000 actually buys
Staff are asking for $259,000 for two bylaw officers, $121,000 toward BC Housing’s HEARTH temporary housing costs (lease, cleanup, maintenance; no confirmed site), and $200,000 for a multi-year community safety plan.
Together that is about a 1.1 percent increase in the 2027 general tax requirement, or roughly $35 for the average residential taxpayer at this estimate stage. Inclusion in the financial plan is not final adoption. Council should endorse enforcement and planning only if they are tied to housing, health, and cost-shifting off the municipal taxpayer. Bylaw capacity without indoor beds just cycles the same people around the same blocks. HEARTH money without a named, staffed, rules-based site is a lease for a program that is still late. A safety plan that identifies gaps is not the same as closing them.
The District’s own record already shows why delay is dangerous: downtown encampments, fire risk, propane tanks, hazard trees, court pushback over site work, and a HEARTH opening still targeted only for winter 2027-28. The 2025 point-in-time count found at least 125 people unhoused in Squamish. BC Housing has said most of that population is local, not a rumour. That does not mean the District should absorb every new arrival created by other jurisdictions. It means the local people need services, and the imported cases need a stop-the-dumping rule.
The legal bind is real. The surrender is optional.
There is no statute that says a homeless person outranks a citizen. What exists is Charter case law that municipalities cannot ignore.
In Victoria (City) v. Adams (2009 BCCA 563), the B.C. Court of Appeal held that a total ban on overnight overhead shelter in public parks violates section 7 of the Charter—life, liberty, and security of the person—when there are not enough accessible indoor shelter spaces. The right recognized was narrow: rudimentary overnight cover when there is no practical indoor alternative. It is not a right to occupy any park, sidewalk, or downtown lot all day, store unlimited goods, light fires, or block public use. Later cases, including Abbotsford v. Shantz, extended the same logic. Courts have also said “accessible” means more than an empty bed count: rules about couples, pets, disability, and safety matter. When indoor options exist and are refused, or when fire and public-safety risks are acute, municipalities have obtained injunctions and enforced trespass and fire orders, subject to notice and a balancing of Charter interests.
That is the trap. Until Victoria and Ottawa fund enough indoor, staffed, rules-based spaces, local bylaw officers are boxed in and local taxpayers pay for parks that no longer function as parks. The way out is not to pretend the Charter does not exist. The way out is to create enough lawful alternatives that downtown camping is no longer a constitutional necessity. Then enforce. Do not wait for a court to define Squamish’s main street.
Best-practice standard: house people, treat people, keep public space public
Finland is the clearest national example. After 2008 it made Housing First national policy: a lease first, then voluntary supports for mental health, addiction, benefits, and daily living. Long-term homelessness fell sharply. Shelters were converted into apartments. Support is available around the clock where needed. Community spaces have rules against violence and against drugs and alcohol in shared areas. Housing is the foundation, not a prize for already being well. OECD reviews treat housing-led and Housing First approaches as the evidence-based path to stability, not as an invitation to unmanaged street camps.
Portugal’s lesson is on drugs and health, not tents. Decriminalization of personal possession was paired with treatment benches: dissuasion commissions, outpatient care, opioid agonist therapy, and social reintegration. Overdose deaths and injection-related HIV fell because treatment capacity rose, not because open-air drug markets were declared a human right. A town that copies the slogan and skips the clinics will get neither recovery nor order.
Interim outdoor options exist in other cities, but they are managed, sited, and time-limited, not scattered through a tourist and retail core. Best practice for people still living in vehicles or tents is:
Safe parking / car camping: off-street lots with toilets, waste service, check-in, and case management. Legal overnight parking with rules. Not a line of RVs on every downtown street.
Managed tent or tiny-home sites: one entry, lighting, cameras or 24/7 staffing, sanitation, storage, no-violence rules, daily meals or food access, and a housing navigator. Cities that started with open tents have moved toward lockable units because weather, fire, and theft make raw tent cities a failure for residents and neighbours.
Healthcare and mental health: on-site or same-day connection to primary care, psychiatric assessment, and medication continuity. Street living is a medical emergency, not a lifestyle brand.
Nutrition: daily food, not dumpster foraging beside restaurants.
Drug rehab: low-barrier access into treatment, including medication-assisted treatment, detox, and residential rehab for those who will take it. Harm reduction without an off-ramp is maintenance of the crisis.
HEARTH, as described to Squamish, is closer to this model than a downtown tent row: fenced grounds, single entry, fob access, 24/7 staffing, cameras, lighting, program agreements, and rent. That is the right type of place. It is not an excuse to leave the current downtown site in place until winter 2027-28. Confirm a site now, open beds as fast as modular construction allows, and stop treating Main and Third as the overflow ward.
Fine and sue third parties who export people
One-way bus tickets and “Greyhound therapy” are a documented practice, not a conspiracy theory. Nevada’s Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital sent patients out of state with a ticket and little or no receiving-care plan. San Francisco sued. A Nevada jury later found liability in the class action, awarding $250,000 per qualifying patient before statutory caps. Other cities have investigated the same dumping. Squamish should treat unarranged transfers the same way: as cost-shifting onto a small municipality.
Council should direct staff to:
1. Log origin, referring agency, and transport method for every new arrival who is not already a Squamish resident.
2. Send formal cost-recovery invoices to any municipality, health authority, hospital, shelter, or contractor that sent a person here without a receiving-care agreement.
3. Ask the Province for a regulation that makes unconsented, unplanned inter-community transfers of unhoused or psychiatrically unstable people an offence, with fines payable to the receiving municipality.
4. Authorize legal action where a pattern can be proved. If San Francisco can sue another state for dumping patients, Squamish can demand repayment from any Canadian institution doing the cheaper version of the same thing.
Compassion does not require Squamish to be the Sea-to-Sky drop-off lot.
Demand the governments that actually own this file
Housing, income assistance, mental health, and addictions are provincial. The federal government funds Reaching Home and holds the larger housing supply levers. The District can zone, enforce, and host a site. It cannot print psychiatrists, rehab beds, or 65 permanent supportive units at 39900 Government Road on a municipal timetable.
Council should pass a motion that:
Accepts the $580,000 only as a bridge, with a public quarterly report on beds opened, people housed, encampment footprint, fires, overdoses, and business complaints.
Conditions the $121,000 HEARTH contribution on a confirmed site, operator, rules, and opening date—not another summer of “likely privately leased.”
Demands the Province fund 24/7 clinical coverage, nutrition, and rehab pathways at the HEARTH site and at Under One Roof, not just modular boxes.
Demands Ottawa match capital and operating costs so a town of this size is not financing a national housing failure at $35 a household and climbing.
States that once accessible indoor capacity exists, unauthorized camping in the dense commercial and visitor core will be closed. Parks and streets return to public use.
Do not surrender
A community safety plan that consults everyone and relocates no one is a brochure. Two more bylaw officers without beds is a more expensive stalemate. Leaving tents in the core because the Charter case law is inconvenient is a choice to transfer the cost onto families, visitors, and the people living in those tents.
Put people in the right range of care: vehicle lots where needed, managed outdoor sites only as a short bridge, staffed indoor housing as the default, health and mental-health care on demand, food every day, and rehab that is actually available. Keep that system off Main Street. Make Victoria and Ottawa pay for it. Bill anyone who ships people here to disappear them. Restore public space as soon as the indoor alternative exists.
That is not cruelty. That is the only model that has ever reduced homelessness and kept a town livable at the same time.
The only conclusion that comes to mind is Power Drunk. I believe we need a support group for people that have I q over 60 to work ourselves through this quagmire
OMG!!!! Ross for King! That’s the most intelligent compilation of information I’ve read in forever. Thankyou!!
Wait a minute. I’m going to pay money from my hard earned wages, to help support drug addicts who have made their CHOICE to STAY addicts? Homelessness comes from many choices made, the ones who are willing to work and get clean and seek mental health help vs the ones who won’t work and continue to literally STEAL our money, criminals and crazy people all over downtown right now!! This is INSANITY that encampments stay in dense residential areas where our tourism is affected. The people who made good choices in their life are now paying for the ones who didn’t?? I don’t feel safe at all anymore downtown. It’s scary and our town is doing nothing about it.
How about removing people from society for committing crimes? If you cannot follow the rules and are a menace to society, so sorry, but you’ve got to go. This is how it has been done since “time immemorial”. The First Nations will tell you that is the way they did it.