YORKTON - The City of Yorkton recently made a series of changes to the city’s Fire Prevention Bylaw.
Thursday the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce held a breakfast coffee presentation where Trevor Morrissey, Fire Chief, with the city RCMP Staff Sgt. Burton Jones reviewed the changes for a small group who attended the event.
Morrissey said at the core of the changes is safety.
“It’s about dealing with unsafe housing,” he said.
That unsafe housing can be varied in nature.
“Sometimes it’s living in a tent,” he said, adding that is dependent on the situation, citing having an open fire to stay warm in a nylon tent as being a dangerous situation.
“We address those types of issues.”
The amendments most notably included a new section to address unsafe outdoor living.
“This section only applies to City owned property; if a tent or temporary shelter is on private property, it will continue to be dealt with through the RCMP as a trespassing concern. The intent of this section is to ensure safe outdoor living for individuals who do not have another location to stay and ensure that they are staying in locations that will not put themselves or others at increased danger,” explained Morrissey at the time of the amendment passage.
“As Council is aware, houselessness is becoming more visible in our community and putting the appropriate parameters in place to ensure safety will allow us to keep our vulnerable populations safe. These concerns tie into our Emergency Measures Operations (EMO) as it may displace a vulnerable population when temperatures become critical in the winter months. It’s important to remember that the houseless population in Yorkton that we’re discussing are members of our community too,” noted Morrissey’s report to Council.
Morrissey said the focus will always be working with people.
“We deal with people one-on-one to talk about what the issues are . . . It’s about helping people – keeping people safe,” he said Thursday, adding “most homeless people are not bad.”
Staff Sgt. Jones said homelessness is “a sign of the times,” adding the situation can cause uneasiness and fear in the community.
When someone is fearful, or unsure of a situation they need to call the police.
“The police’s job is public safety,” he said.
The public should not get into confrontations which might put them at risk, but leave it to the police to deal with.
“My biggest message is ‘call the police’. . . I just can’t stress enough call the police,” said Jones.
But the public does hold concerns.
“I can’t even feel comfortable walking to work anymore,” offered one in attendance.
Another said homeless “may not be aggressive to you but may be one step away from being aggressive.”
Later Jones would tell Yorkton This Week that physical confrontations between homeless and the public is rare.
“It does happen but it’s very, very, very low on the list,” he said, adding confrontations are most often between those who know one another.
The bylaw changes also allow for rental living space inspections to again determine issues of safety, said Morrissey, noting for example bedrooms need windows of a certain size, and there are limits on how many beds in a room in terms of allowing safe exit in times of emergency.
Jones said often living conditions are worse than most might imagine.
“We go into these homes and it’s awful,” he said.
It’s about “keeping these rentals to a standard that is safe,” said Morrissey
Morrissey said they are not looking to remove people from their homes, but they do want people living in safe situations.
“This is about keeping people in homes,” he said.
The bylaw amendments also looked at rental housing concerns.
“An economic boom in the area bringing large numbers of short-term workers into the community has created a corresponding boom on our rental housing market. Administration would like to take steps to ensure that available rentals are meeting minimum safety requirements,” detailed the report.
Administration proposed introducing rental housing licensing and inspections to ensure rental housing is maintained and safe for renters.
“The Fire Department will inspect properties for life safety and fire safety concerns and will require property owners to correct the deficiencies. Approximately 25 per cent of residential housing in Yorkton is rental housing,” detailed the report.
“As the rental market is currently booming, more and more we’re seeing residential houses being used as full rentals or split into multi-unit dwellings. This is also becoming popular for property owners to rent out portions of their house to help make mortgages more palatable. These new trends that we’re seeing brings a potential for unsafe housing added to the rental market and with a low rental vacancy rate in the community, it leaves little options for people to find safer housing. The intent of introducing this section is to promote safe rentals and voluntary compliance, but also to have parameters in place if rental units are not maintained to the minimum standards.”
“You need to identify what’s happening and who’s responsible,” Morrissey told the Chamber event.
