Opioids and homelessness hit this Ontario city hard. Then, it threw all it had at the crisis. The Globe returns to see what those efforts achieved
In early November, workers in pickup trucks arrived at Milligan’s Pond, a wooded oasis in Barrie, Ont., an hour north of Toronto. Their orders were clear.
After a double murder nearby left two men from a local homeless encampment dead and another charged with the crime, the city had declared a state of emergency and started clearing its biggest encampments. The last one left was at Milligan’s Pond.
The city issued trespass notices to the men and women living there, and then the workers swept up everything: tents, sleeping bags, shopping carts, propane tanks. But if you looked closely, you could still see the remnants of a homemade memorial to those who have died on Barrie’s streets, many of them from drug overdoses. Locals call it The Rock. Its story is the story of the city’s struggle, written on stone.
