Members of Hamilton’s legal, medical and street outreach community are demanding that police stop ticketing homeless people for not observing “physical distancing” rules amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is not going to solve the problem,” said Lisa Nussey of Keeping Six, a group that supports drug users and people experiencing homelessness.

Nussey said she and her colleagues have learned of tickets issued to homeless people for not following provincial orders that ban groups of more than five people.

In one case, a man of no fixed address was ticketed $750 for “fail to comply with an order made during a declared emergency” at the corner of King and Bay streets. The date on the ticket is April 1.

The power to penalize people congregating in groups flows from the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.

Chief Eric Girt said police are taking a “graduated approach” with officers exercising “discretion,” issuing warnings before tickets.

“We want compliance first. We certainly explained it to a number of people,” Girt said, referring to tickets issued over the weekend. “Some people remain oppositional, so then we’re put in a spot where we may have to do enforcement and that’s obviously our last alternative.”

In one case this past weekend, a group was “passing around a bottle of alcohol,” police spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email. One person showing signs of COVID-19 was taken to hospital, she said.

They agreed to “disperse,” but when police returned, people — all told about 10 — were still there, Penman said. “Tickets were then issued in hopes of gaining compliance.”

Penman didn’t provide additional details.

People experiencing homelessness — apart from not having money to pay steep fines — can face a host of challenges, including mental illnesses and drug addiction.

Some also live outside in tents and tarps, sharing close quarters for security and other reasons. Meanwhile, shelters are hard-pressed to ensure adequate separation between people in common areas.

So far, there has been only one publicly confirmed case of a homeless person with the potentially deadly virus. The man, who stayed at the Salvation Army, is now at a special isolation area at Bennetto Community Centre in the North End.

Nussey said ticketing homeless people will not solve the public health emergency caused by COVID-19.

“I think the message to police should be that this a question of public health, not law and order, and people need to be given every opportunity and every avenue to promote public health.”

In a statement, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic echoed that, saying: “This is a crisis best addressed from a public health approach.”

The clinic added, “people, especially those who are homeless, must not be penalized because of their economic circumstance.”

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Defence lawyer Peter Boushy, who has represented homeless clients fighting panhandling tickets, agrees $750 fines won’t help in the current crisis.

“I think to ticket someone who’s homeless, obviously, is not keeping in the spirit of our community.”

Police ticketed one of his clients numerous times for panhandling, saddling him with more than $30,000 in fines. In 2018, he and Dwight Perry convinced a court to withdraw 17 tickets under the Safe Streets Act.

“In terms of trying to prevent them from continuing to ask for money, there was no effect; there was no positive effect ... but one of the effects was distrust of police,” Boushy said.

The Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team (HamSmart), in a joint newsletter with Keeping Six, “implore” government officials to “stop criminalizing people who are homeless and instead do absolutely everything in their power to make it possible for people to participate in physical distancing with dignity.”

That should involve opening more rest and hygiene stations to fill the gap, they said, as other options such as library branches and fast-food joints are now shuttered.

HamSmart and Keeping Six also want the city to immediately provide “safe, adequate, independent housing for every person who wants or needs it during the pandemic.”

Likewise, the legal clinic urged the city to “immediately divert all available resources to existing efforts in securing facilities like stadiums, hotels and dorms so that people can participate in the collective goal to slow transmission.”

Paul Johnson, director of the city’s Emergency Operations Centre, has argued transferring all Hamilton shelter users to hotel rooms isn’t feasible and cited stretched human resources as a barrier to opening more daytime respite spaces.

“We’re trying to put more supports in place,” Johnson said, noting more initiatives to help homeless people during the crisis are expected to be announced this week.

In the meantime, the city has provided portable washrooms outside of FirstOntario Centre at the corner of York and Bay streets, in addition to the extended hours at existing drop-in programs.