Each Sunday, Gerald and many other people experiencing homelessness wait at the Belvedere LRT station for soup and bannock from Bear Claw Beaver Hills House. They come not only for food and harm reduction supplies, but also for community. They look out for each other, take care of each other, many say.
But another thing comes up again and again in conversations — stories of encounters with police.
“We actually had to move right out of the inner city and the other side of the river just to stop being harassed by cops,” Gerald said. “They’re ripping up tents, they’re ripping up blankets. They’re taking away your right to live and well-being.”
Gerald has been unhoused in Edmonton for about seven years. He lost his housing after an injury left him unable to work. Years later, he’s still on a wait-list to get surgery.
He does what he can to help others out, such as volunteering at a local church that provides a weekly supper, food hampers and clothes for unhoused people. The Tyee is referring to Gerald by his first name only to preserve his privacy.
While Gerald said the community takes care of one another, living on the streets is still a struggle. He described having to start from Square 1 nearly every week after his belongings are taken. On top of that, Gerald said police frequently give out tickets that he can’t pay for jaywalking, trespassing or theft.
“It’s just like they’re on a ruthless road to get rid of all homeless people,” he said.
He’s noticed an increase in police presence downtown and around transit centres.
According to Homeward Trust’s 2025 Point-in-Time count, 3,709 people in Edmonton were experiencing homelessness. That’s up 86 per cent from 2021, but down slightly from 2024’s count of 3,902.
The city has grappled with how to tackle the visible homelessness and substance use crisis. The Edmonton Police Service, or EPS, has responded to the concerns of public safety and social disorder with plans for more targeted enforcement.
Edmonton police Chief Warren Driechel said at a press conference on May 8: “Over the last few years, our city, like many others, has moved towards accepting things we should never have accepted. Illegal drug use, visible disorder in our public spaces and behaviour that makes people feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods and communities.”
“I’m here today to say that that cycle ends now, and we will no longer be tolerant of what is happening in our streets or in our city,” Driechel said. “Normalizing disorder doesn’t make it go away. It makes it worse.”
Driechel referenced EPS’s public survey data that found 72 per cent of people were not comfortable using transit after dark. One in three people said they felt unsafe in their neighbourhoods.
Driechel said Edmonton police would be taking a data-driven approach to deploy more resources to areas with higher crime, otherwise called crime treatment zones. He said EPS had seen a 13 per cent decrease in crime between March 12 and April 8 in the downtown core as a result of these early efforts.
Acting Supt. Jared Hrycun noted at the press conference that EPS had found similar success in McCauley and Chinatown, two neighbourhoods bordering downtown. EPS also found success in targeted enforcement in Castle Downs, a neighbourhood in north Edmonton.
Dan Jones spent 25 years in the Edmonton Police Service before becoming an instructor at NorQuest College’s justice program.
Jones said he feels for business owners who struggle due to the prevalence of homelessness in Edmonton’s downtown.
But he said that when police clear out encampments, the losses are devastating for unhoused people.
“When you’re unhoused and the police clean up your encampment — and I’ve seen this happen and talked to people who’ve had this happen when I was a police officer — when the last picture of their dead grandmother was thrown away by police, [I’ve seen the] impact that has on those individuals.”
The crime treatment zones aren’t the first time EPS has put more officers into specific areas of concern. Jones noted that former Edmonton police chief Dale McFee spearheaded a police strategy that saw groups of six to eight officers walking in targeted zones.
“That is actually counter to evidence if you look at evidence-based policing practices,” Jones explained. “That would be what’s called blitz policing. When you blitz a crime treatment area or a hot spot, you actually increase the harm.”
He said research has shown that crime temporarily goes down in areas where blitz policing is employed but later spikes back up.
Jones said many of the issues he sees with policing root back to a disconnect between evidence-based policing and the realities of policing. He said pressure within the police force itself and from the public often pushes police to aim for quick results instead of evidence-based, lasting solutions.
‘People will do anything when they’re desperate’
Rebecca Reid has been volunteering with organizations that do outreach for unhoused individuals for 25 years. When COVID-19 hit and some of those services shut down, she took matters into her own hands.
What initially started as four people handing out water has turned into much more. Each Thursday Water Warriors hands out water, sandwiches, snacks, hygiene products and naloxone kits to people living on Edmonton’s streets.
She’s seen first-hand and heard from others about the mistreatment of unhoused people in Edmonton.
“I have friends that are on the [police] force and they’re good people, but there’s also people that are not so good on the force,” she said. “We’ve noticed when they see us, they will treat unhoused folks differently than they would if we weren’t around.”
Photo for The Tyee by Leah Hennig.
She pointed over to a path near where Water Warriors meets each week. “We noticed it happening right over here. They were looking for somebody and they were kind of being a little rough with the guy, and then we raised our voices so that they knew that we were over here, and all of a sudden they got polite.”
Reid added that they’ve also witnessed the destruction and theft of property.
“These folks are taking away blankets and tarps and tents, things that these folks need to shelter themselves from the elements and actually survive,” she said.
“Groups like ours are fighting a losing battle because we’ll supply [unhoused people] with everything they need last week, and then they’re back again this week because they’ve had everything taken.”
During his May 8 press conference, Edmonton police Chief Driechel said officers deal with complex issues around mental health, substance use and organized crime. “They act with compassion. They enforce where necessary, and they provide options for support for those in need. It is a very delicate balance. I’m very proud of what our members and teams have already accomplished in such a short time due to their relentless followup and follow-through.”
But what some community members have seen isn’t compassion.
Gerald said an officer had threatened to come back off-duty and assault him. In another case, he was chased by officers.
“That’s the kinds of things that we deal with on a daily basis,” he said. Others The Tyee spoke with described similar experiences with police.
He described feeling hunted by police officers. That pushes people towards gangs for a feeling of safety, he added.
“If people here had been left alone with their stuff, I don’t think there’d be half the crime rate,” he said.
“People will do anything when they’re desperate, but when your life is on the line, you really don’t think you’re going to make it to the next day, you do what you got to do.”
Jones said community organizations have reached out to him when they see police officers mistreating unhoused people.
“I’ve heard it from community organizations that have got in contact with me saying that there’s six or eight police officers harassing unhoused people in their community… what should they do about it?” Jones said.
EPS did not respond to The Tyee’s request for comment.
Anne Stevenson, city councillor for Ward O-day’min and a member of the Edmonton Police Commission, has heard some of these concerns.
“That’s always a concern. I think, as [an elected official], what’s challenging is we can only act on data or on reports,” she explained. “It’s tougher when we’re only having anecdotes.”
‘Police alone cannot solve this problem’
One thing Gerald, Stevenson, Reid, Jones and Driechel all agree on is that policing won’t solve the issues Edmontonians see downtown.
“I think there’s a broad recognition, and I hear it from EPS members, that policing isn’t the solution for the challenges that we’re seeing,” Stevenson said.
Driechel echoed this during his press conference on May 8, saying that “police alone cannot solve this problem.”
“We can enforce the laws. We can be visible. We can remove drugs from the street and hold people accountable,” he said. “But lasting change requires all of us, social service partners, health-care providers, community organizations, elected officials and the public working together with a shared commitment to both accountability and compassion.”
Reid said she doesn’t think police should be doing social work; rather, she said, social workers should be “out on the streets right now, gaining the trust of these folks and helping them find housing.”
“It should be the government’s responsibility to make sure that everybody has housing and food and all that basic stuff to survive, but it’s not happening,” she said.
“More than half of the folks out here are Indigenous,” Reid said. “That stems from residential schools and previous trauma, and, again, mental health. Mental health is health. That might be a good place to start right there, take care of the whole person.
“It’s just a matter of treating people like a human being, looking them in the eyes. It’s not hard.” ![[Tyee]](https://thetyee.ca/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
About the Author
