The city has been asked to provide a parcel of land for homeless residents to camp on this summer.

Kate Mechan, the executive director of the Safe at Home Society, made the appeal during Monday evening’s standing committees meeting.

Some local residents are suffering the “intersecting crises” of violence, opioids use and homelessness, she told city council members.

She estimates there are 228 people in Whitehorse suffering from the various effects of long-term, chronic homelessness. The latter term refers to the lack of a home for 180 or more days a year.

While the society hasn’t seen an increase in the number of campers in the capital, Mechan said, it knows of people who are under the impression they need to camp in the absence of housing options.

The number of people feeling 
obliged to tent it rose by 58 per cent between 2023 and 2024, she said.

“People are existing with uncertainty,” she said. “Camping for survival is a human rights issue. We all have a right to feel safe.”

Halifax, Kitchener, Ont. and Kelowna, B.C. are three cities where the municipal governments have donated land for the homeless to camp on, Mechan said.

Some campgrounds are operated by the municipality, she said, and some even provide such comforts as a centralized heating source.

“People are wanting us to advocate for the situations they might be in,” Mechan said.

As for a location for a camping area, “the inclination would be wanting it to be outside the downtown core” but still relatively central, Mechan said.

“I didn’t get my map out to see what might be available. I don’t think it (a land parcel) needs to be huge,” she said.

There was no discussion of Mechan’s request by council members on Monday.

The society is overseeing multimillion-dollar renovations at the former High Country Inn on Fourth Avenue to house individuals without homes.

After the residents who lived at the ex-inn over the winter had to leave due to the renovations, Lane Tredger, the NDP MLA for Whitehorse Centre, told the legislature last month there were “dozens” of people forced into tents in Whitehorse.

Premier Ranj Pillai accused Tredger of embellishing the actual number of people in tents.