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Winnipeg’s encampment population has dropped significantly over the past year, with city data showing 245 people living across 72 encampments at the end of July. That figure represents a sharp decline from the same period last year, when more than 700 people occupied roughly 100 encampments across the city. Officials are calling the trend encouraging, though community members and business owners say serious challenges remain on the ground.
Encampment Numbers Fall, But Concerns Persist
Mayor Scott Gillingham highlighted the progress at a recent briefing. “The number of people living in encampments this time this year compared to this time last year has been cut in half,” he said. The areas with the highest concentration of encampments include Point Douglas, with 19, and Fort Rouge/East Fort Garry, with 17.
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Winnipeg’s Standing Policy Committee will receive a formal report next week detailing the city’s response to homelessness, including its encampment distance guidelines. Since June, the protocol has resulted in 141 encampments being cleared. The city says it offers housing options and support services to people displaced by these clearings.
Not everyone views the clearings as a solution, however. Susan Lockhart, president of Just Like New to You Thrift Store on Portage Avenue, says displaced residents are simply relocating to her doorstep. “You shut down an encampment, where are they supposed to go? There’s not places for them to be so they just end up in our storefronts,” she said.
Lockhart describes the current situation as the worst she has seen for crime in the area. She says property damage has become routine, and this week a violent assault occurred directly across the street from her business. “It was in broad daylight and there were five people just smashing another person,” she said. “Our handyman who does some help with us, he had his car torched in the back lane. It can be very scary here.”
Housing Shortage Remains the Core Obstacle
Mayor Gillingham acknowledged that the city currently lacks sufficient housing stock to support everyone leaving encampments. He said Winnipeg continues to work with the provincial government to address the gap. “The biggest chokepoint is that there’s just not enough housing at this moment,” he said. “We’ve made progress, there’s more work to do.”
At the provincial level, Manitoba’s Your Way Home strategy has moved 267 people into transitional housing since launching at the start of last year. Eighty-five percent of those individuals remain housed. On Friday, the province held a press conference at one of its downtown transitional housing sites, which contains 118 units.
N’Dinawemak, an Indigenous-led organization, provides around-the-clock support services at the facility. Senior Director Nicholas Candaele explained that staff work three shifts to ensure continuous coverage. “If someone has an issue at midnight for example, they have someone they can instantly go to whether that be someone for case management, whether they need a meal, whatever it might be,” he said.
Naloxone Use Surges Amid Ongoing Addictions Crisis
The city’s report also flags a worsening drug crisis. Naloxone administrations in Winnipeg reached a record 4,900 in 2025. In the first half of 2026 alone, the overdose-reversing drug was administered more than 4,000 times, putting the city on pace to far exceed last year’s record.
Housing and Addictions Minister Bernadette Smith emphasized the direct link between homelessness and addiction. She argued that transitional housing addresses both issues together. “We know that substance use is based in trauma,” Smith said. “If we can help folks move from their trauma into a space where they can have some coping skills, some tools in their toolbelts, that if things are happening in their life they’re not turning to substances.”
Smith also pointed to Manitoba’s first supervised consumption site, which opened last month, as a tool for connecting vulnerable people to housing and health services. She offered no specific data on the site’s outcomes but confirmed the province plans to release quarterly updates on its progress.
