Medicine Hat encampment cleanup costs fell to $95K in 2026 after spiking to $289K in 2025

Medicine Hat's encampment cleanup costs surged from $95,000 in 2024 to $289,000 in 2025 before falling back to approximately the same 2024 level this year, city staff told the Public Services Committee on Monday.

Leah Prestayko, Acting Managing Director of Public Services, said the drop is at least partly the result of earlier intervention by the PEACE team, a multi-agency group that works with people living in encampments and has begun doing some cleanup work itself. "The PEACE team itself has begun to do some of the work of cleaning up encampments, which has resulted in a decreased expenditure from the city for encampment-related cleanup," Prestayko said during Monday's committee meeting.

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Prestayko said all cleanup calls are now routed through a single work order in Parks and Recreation, regardless of which city department discovers the site. "So whether that's Municipal Works discovering something, Parks and Recreation, or a call coming from wherever, we're really trying to understand what those costs are through that single work order," she said.

The roughly $95,000 figure covers contractor time, landfill costs, biohazard disposal and vandalism directly related to encampments. Parks and Recreation received 140 service requests related to encampments in 2025 and 90 in 2026, Prestayko said.

Coun. Stuart Young pressed staff on what exactly the budget captures and what falls outside it. "Are you saying that the 2026 budget was $95,000, or are you saying that's just how much we've spent in the budget?" Young asked during Monday's meeting.

Prestayko said the $95,000 represents costs incurred to date, not the full budget allocation. Young said the budget figure is around $130,000, and Prestayko confirmed it is higher than the spending figure, saying it was set based on a three-year historical average.

Costs tracked through the encampment work order do not include activity by bylaw officers or the Medicine Hat Police Service. "In terms of things that bylaw or police might be doing, those would not be captured in our budget," Prestayko said. "So those could be separate." The hours and supplies contributed by provincial partners such as Recovery Alberta and Alberta Health Services also fall outside the city's encampment budget, she said.

The Acting Director of Parks and Recreation added that fire response costs are similarly excluded. "If there was a fire at the academy, it would not be included in that number," the acting director said during Monday's meeting. "So that would be a separate dollar amount."

Fire call data presented at the meeting showed outside fires held relatively steady: 89 calls in 2025 and 87 in 2026. Of the 87 calls this year, 29 were specifically encampment-related and 58 were described as somewhat related, involving locations such as bridges and tunnels.

Mayor Linnsie Clark said she had accompanied the PEACE team and observed members removing material from encampments that had been warned a period prior. "They did try to remove what they could on their own," Clark said. "It was only in situations where there was a lot of stuff that it couldn't be hauled out, and it was sort of pinned for removal later."

Prestayko said the number of encampments has fallen even as the number of bylaw and PEACE team interactions has risen, and that the structures being found tend to be more temporary. "There's more temporary structures like tents versus some that become a little bit more elaborate or permanent in their placement," she said.

The committee did not vote on any action items related to the encampment file. City council's budget discussions are ongoing, with the 2027 budget process underway.