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CAMBRIDGE — The shelters and some belongings of at least three people experiencing homelessness in Cambridge were demolished this week, bringing finality to TC Energy’s eviction of residents.

After Waterloo Regional Police removed people from TC Energy’s property Tuesday, bulldozers arrived Thursday and destroyed the cabins residents had built and their possessions, residents said.

Jon Butzer and Erica Steele said they were told the company would have their belongings packed up and stored in a shipping container. When they returned to the site after it was destroyed, much of Steele’s property was still there, she said.

Steele quoted Mehmet Murat ildan, a Turkish playwright and novelist, as her response to what has happened at the camp.

“The real invisibles of this world are not the fabricated beings of the mind like angels and demons, but the homeless of the dirty streets,” she said.

At least one other cabin was destroyed.

Steele and Butzer were able to recover some items and had moved some property to a new camp prior to demolition but they feel like they’re starting over. Butzer is on the region’s high-priority housing list.

In an emailed statement, TC Energy said items that could be recovered safely were and provided a photo of some possessions being removed.

The company said its priority is safety.

“We have mobilized specialized crews, including hazardous materials professionals and equipment on-site, safely cleaning up a substantial volume of debris, building material and garbage,” the statement said. “As you know, this is a wooded property where equipment is necessary for our crews to do their work. We are carefully collecting belongings that can be safely collected and stored.”

As many as 12 residents had stayed at various cabins and tents on the property since Butzer and Steele first arrived in the spring of 2021.

No one bothered them about being there until January, when someone made an anonymous complaint to the city’s online ‘cleanup request’ form.

An eviction notice followed, delivered by city bylaw officers, after the city contacted TC Energy because of the complaint.

An original eviction date for the start of June wasn’t enforced but on-site security to monitor residents coming and going was in place and the push to leave increased.

The City of Cambridge said of the 687 complaints recorded last year about people experiencing homelessness, it didn’t track how many resulted in people being evicted.

Some city staff, police and bylaw officers have access to the ‘cleanup request’ reports made, but outreach workers do not, said Julie Kalbfleisch, director of communications.

She said staff and outreach workers attend sites when they’re reported and also leave contact cards.

It would be up to a private property owner to seek independent legal advice related to safety or trespassing issues, Kalbfleisch said.

The origin of the ‘cleanup request’ form was for people to report needles they came across in the community.

Jessica Hutchison, a spokesperson for Reallocate Waterloo Region, which works toward having part of the police budget reallocated to deal with housing issues, said the shift to reporting people sends a dangerous message to the public that people experiencing homelessness are unsafe.

“It’s actually expanded from reporting things like litter and inanimate objects to now we’re actually reporting human beings and a tool like this conflates homeless folks with being less than human,” Hutchison said.

Cambridge Mayor Kathryn McGarry declined an interview request on this topic.

When Hutchison posted about the ‘cleanup request’ form on social media, however, McGarry posted on Twitter that the form isn’t to complain about people but to help them.

“There are no questions about whether there are people who are in need of help or support,” Hutchison said, but added the questions on the form are focused on whether police need to be contacted and whether there are safety concerns.

She said the online reporting form criminalizes people experiencing homelessness.

“It’s a way of the city and region to deflect responsibility from themselves and construct people living without housing as risky, as dangerous and as criminals so it’s an extremely harmful tool,” Hutchison said.

Cambridge has had more reports of people living in encampments than Kitchener, Waterloo and the region combined.

Last year, Waterloo bylaw officers went to 39 encampments, Kitchener bylaw officers answered 56 complaints about encampments and the region sent bylaw to four.

Some residents of Cambridge have also used drones to surveil encampments in the past.

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