Moccasin Flats road project highlights need for more improvements, residents say

The residents of Mocassin Flats encampment got an early start to their day Monday morning, as some of them woke up to the sound of rumbling graders and loaders working to clear a roadway through their campsite.

City crews got started at 9 a.m., plowing a designated road marked on either side by concrete dividers to provide safer access for emergency vehicles to the camp on the east side of downtown that is home to about 100 people.

Charlene Pouce Coupe has been camping at Moccasin Flats for three days with her male friend and she sees the road construction as a good thing. She’s hopeful it will bring more improvements and better amenities to the area.

“This road is a start, that’s the way I see it,” she said.

Pouce Coupe asked a city supervisor who stopped to talk as he drove through in his truck if he knew if or when the city was coming with more portable toilets. Just two port-a-potties serve the entire encampment and both are located close to the west entrance, a long walk from the shelter she shares with her friend.

“If the city is putting this (road) up, then the toilets should be the city’s responsibility,” said Pouce Coupe.

The city worker said he would make some inquiries to try to rectify the problem.

She said that would just be the start of meeting the basic needs of the residents of Moccasin Flats, where there’s no water supply, no showers, no garbage disposal system, and no place to escape the weather.

“My top priority would be tarps and a proper shelter with outhouses and a proper shower place, like there’s nothing here for them,” said Pouce Coupe.

“Those tents they have in war zones would be perfect for here. These tarps here are so thin and it’s really bad in the scorching heat. Some of them need tents. There’s an elderly lady sleeping on a couch and it’s not nice.

“There’s some elders here and maybe somebody can come with water for them,” she said.

Pouce Coupe stopped at the Moccasin Flats garden to talk to Rachel Rossetti, who was busy pulling weeds from the strawberry patch and vegetable garden plots that have mostly been untouched since last summer.

“I like what she’s doing with the garden, to show that, yes, we want to live,” said Pouce Coupe. “It’s not always about the drugs and alcohol, it’s just a place to live and communicate. Everybody loves everybody here, and everybody helps everybody out.”

After her truck broke down, Pouce Coupe didn’t have a place to stay until she ran into an old friend, who offered to share his shelter. She’s heard about violence that’s happened to some people in the encampment and was nervous about coming there at first, but now feels much better about her decision to stay there.

“I thought it was scary but it’s not,” she said. “We’re all equal. Rich or poor, we’re born with nothing and we’re going to go down with nothing.”