MONCTON -- The unintended consequence of the closure of Moncton's tent city is that some of the people evicted are now putting up their tents on other vacant properties around the city.
What used to be tent city is now an empty field. It's a place Stephanie Cail once called home until she and her fellow residents were evicted last Thursday.
"I feel like society kind of gave up on us a little bit there for sure," Cail said.
Excavators were on site Monday, cleaning up leftover debris, and security is still manning the property.
Some are now seeking refuge behind vacant buildings downtown.
Business owners in the area say it's making their job difficult.
"I gotta pay property taxes to the city and if I can't rent apartments and people don't want to rent in that apartment area, I can't do business," said Moncton property owner Charles Jonah.
The Moncton Fire Department has been making the rounds to check on the homeless and the security of the buildings.
"What we look for is to make sure the property is secured, and that's not just to keep people away but we want to make sure they're secured so that people that are homeless are not going inside to take shelter," said Moncton Fire Chief Charles Leblanc.
Numbers at nearby shelters are also going up.
"We are running about, roughly, at capacity," said Harvest House Atlantic founder Cal Maskery.
Harvest House has just been approved for more staffing through social development.
Some who chose to rough it out on a former military base were told to leave Monday and a bulldozer plowed through some of their belongings.
"It breaks my heart," Cail said. "I hurt a lot for all these people around here."
Some say leaving one camp site just to find another is a never-ending cycle.
"It's just going to keep happening," Maskery said. "People that want to camp out, they're going to continue to do it, they'll find another site."
People are making ends meet wherever they can and hoping they won't be asked to leave.
Some who have been staying in the backyard of a residence on Dominion Street have been told by the property owner that they have until Wednesday morning to gather their belongings and find somewhere else to go.
