North Perth heard from citizen Kyle Girodat at Monday’s council meeting regarding the issue of homelessness and by-law concerns.
Kyle expressed his issues with homelessness and an excess of garbage in encampments in Listowel.
Girodat mentioned he had spoken with bylaw on the issue with them explaining they only clean the camps when the homeless are gone which left him confused.
Girodat says he isn’t trying to have homeless removed from where they’re staying but wants measures taken to clean up the area from garbage.
“It would be easy enough to just have bylaw and the police go there with some garbage cans and say ‘guys you need to clean this up, if you don’t clean it up we’re going to schedule it to be cleaned up in a week with whatever’s left over gets cleaned up'” said Girodat.
Comments received were given to CAO Kris Snell to provide a response. Snell says staff only really clean the camps when homeless are gone but it isn’t a requirement to do so.
Snell added saying it isn’t bylaw who deals with the issue but instead a task force of town staff and support groups for those in need who try to work with those in the camps to ensure cleaning is done.
Snell also reassured council and Girodat the homeless in North Perth aren’t travelling from other areas to come here and instead are from the community or have a connection to North Perth.
Councilor Sarah Blazek requested from staff to provide reports from the task force to council which was voted and approved by council.
