With winter weather taking its toll, Winnipeg’s skywalks can be a place for people on the streets to warm up. But concerns over panhandling have security patrols cracking down on skywalk living.

The Downtown Watch, a program set up by the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, has patrolled the streets of downtown Winnipeg for several years; now they are also patrolling the skywalk system.

Chad Kendel, the supervisor of the Downtown BIZ Safety Program, said the BIZ patrol pays attention to the temperature, noting that as the temperature drops there are more people looking to stay warm inside the walkways.

“We want to make sure they’re not freezing, but we don’t want them to be causing grief,” said Kendel.

Generally the Downtown Watch will remove people who are panhandling or if they are creating a disturbance.

“ From our side I understand if you don’t have a home, but it kind of scares people away.

Chris Lucas, Lucas and Associates Travel Group

Valerie Price, executive director of the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties, said it is important that people not be removed without just cause.

“Decisions to move people along or not should be based on their behaviour,” said Price.

But according to Price, the limits of allowed behaviour should take a person’s mode of earning into account. Price said that mere panhandling is not grounds for removal.

Chris Lucas owns Lucas and Associates Travel Group in one of the skywalks in Winnipeg. He said there are a few people who regularly hang around in the skywalk that he operates his business in.

According to Lucas, security from nearby Portage Place Shopping Centre often removes panhandlers within 20 minutes.

Lucas said he personally believes that people who have nowhere to go need somewhere to warm up, but he said some other skywalk users are sometimes uncomfortable because of the homeless.

“From our side I understand if you don’t have a home, but it kind of scares people away,” Lucas said.

Confusion abounds over whose jurisdiction the city’s walkways fall under. All portions of the walkway that are within a building are the responsibility of the building owner. Yet the walkways over the street are the responsibility of the Winnipeg Parking Authority (WPA).

Doug Thiessen, weather protected walkway co-ordinator for the WPA, said the WPA has a security agreement with the Downtown Watch to “provide a continuity of security,” but there is a bit of a jurisdictional overlap.

Thiessen said that responsibility for a walkway’s upkeep is split between the two buildings on either side of each walkway, while security was a shared concern.

He said that while there were people the Watch removed, it was not meant to be discriminatory.

“I don’t think we’re trying to get rid of one particular group,” he said.

“People will only be removed for breaking the law: public drunkenness or panhandling.”

To speak to the WPA, call the new 311 line or 204-986-6281, or e-mail 311 [at] winnipeg.ca.

Published in Volume 63, Number 18 of The Uniter (January 29, 2009)