Residents move elsewhere

Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader

One of Slave Lake’s homeless ‘camps’ was shut down last week. The campers have moved on, perhaps to a less conspicuous place.

According to mayor Tyler Warman, the eviction happened something like this:

“It’s private land,” he says. “We informed the owner.”

The owner, who is not local, decided he did not want to risk the liability involved in hosting such a camp. So he came to town and saw to it that his lot was evacuated and cleaned up.

“Some members of the Homeless Coalition worked with the group (campers),” Warman says, “and they moved off of there.”

The transition went a lot more smoothly than it could have, had the Homeless Coalition not existed and developed a good relationship with some (or maybe all) of the campers.

“They knew it was coming,” says Jule Asterisk, one of the coalition volunteers. “We just didn’t think it would be that soon.”

A big ‘thank you’ is due to GFL, Asterisk says, for providing the bin for the clean-up.

“We really appreciated that.”

Asterisk says the search for a more suitable location continues. One with truck access would be good, so portable toilets could be set up.