Town has no reliable count of its homeless residents: Redekop
August 24, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Mayor Wayne Redekop said the biggest gap in the town’s response to homelessness is not knowing how many residents are homeless, where they are staying or what support they need.
Redekop spoke to Fort Erie Radio ahead of a roundtable the town is hosting Monday at the request of Casa El Norte, a Fort Erie non-profit studying homelessness in town.
The mayor said the town responds to homelessness case by case, based on what residents report.
“We hear from residents about somebody camping out here or there, and so we try to respond to those specific needs, but one of the gaps is getting a better understanding of where these individuals are, what their circumstances are, what kind of support they need in order to get into a more stable housing situation,” said Redekop.
Brock University researcher Dr. Joanne Haritz approached Redekop with Casa El Norte about hosting the rouundtable under a grant from the Niagara Community Foundation, and he agreed.
“That’s a topic of interest to us,” he said. “We’ve been looking at issues relative to affordability of housing, and also concerned about those who are underhoused or don’t have housing at all.”
Redekop said he expected participants to compare Fort Erie’s challenges with those in other municipalities and identify gaps in housing and support services.
Groups would also be asked for recommendations on how a solution for Fort Erie could be crafted, and how it would fit with work already underway across Niagara.
Invitations went out to multiple non-profits that work in housing and homelessness support in Niagara.
Dr. Haritz will compile the findings into a report, which will be presented to town council.
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Andrew Hawlitzky
Andrew is a Niagara community journalist who has covered everything from local politics to annual festivals and breaking news. He works to make local news a platform where community voices lead the conversation. "If you don't like the news, go out and make some!"
It would be beneficial if the reporter looked at both sides of the issue. If that had happened he would have realized that there is in fact a count and data that exists for Fort Erie. You merely have to contact the Director of Homelessness at the Niagara Region or even talk to Strong Fort Erie Neighorhoods and see just what their outreach teams actually do. It is interesting that those in the know, Director of Homelessness, NASO and SFEN ,were not invited to the table.
To be frank, we would have appreciated an invitation to the meeting itself, but neither the public nor the media were allowed to attend. Based on this story we ran last year, I was under the impression that reliable counts do not exist across the Region: Insinna asks about ‘couch surfers’ and how Region tracks homelessness. Could you clarify?