08/17/2026
Beyond Removal: A Security Perspective on Homelessness, Public Safety, and Human Dignity
By President Leo Ekhaguere
President & CEO, Lions Security Incorporated
Working in private security has given me a perspective on homelessness that statistics alone cannot provide.
Security professionals often encounter people experiencing homelessness in commercial properties, parking areas, entrances, service corridors, public spaces, and other locations where businesses, employees, customers, and members of the public expect safety and accessibility.
These encounters can involve everything from a person simply looking for shelter to more complex situations involving mental-health distress, substance use, medical emergencies, aggressive behaviour, property damage, or repeated trespassing.
For security officers, the immediate responsibility is clear: protect people and property, maintain safe access, respond professionally to disturbances, and enforce lawful property rules.
But repeated frontline encounters raise a larger question:
Are we simply moving people from one location to another, or are we building systems capable of addressing the circumstances that keep bringing them back into crisis?
Homelessness Is More Than a Security Issue
Homelessness is visible in public spaces, but its causes often begin elsewhere.
Housing instability, unemployment, poverty, mental-health challenges, addiction, family breakdown, trauma, disability, and limited access to support services can all contribute to a person becoming homeless.
Security officers usually encounter the consequences of these problems rather than their origins.
When someone is removed from private property, the immediate concern may be resolved. But if that individual has nowhere safe to go, the problem may simply move to another business, another doorway, another parking lot, or another part of the community.
That is not a long-term solution.
It is displacement.
Public Safety and Compassion Can Coexist
There should never be a false choice between protecting businesses and treating vulnerable people with dignity.
Businesses have a legitimate right to protect their employees, customers, property, and operations. Members of the public should be able to enter businesses, walk through parking areas, and use community spaces without intimidation, obstruction, violence, or unnecessary risk.
At the same time, homelessness itself should not automatically be treated as criminal behaviour.
Professional security means understanding the difference between vulnerability and threatening conduct.
A person who is simply seeking temporary shelter may require a very different response from someone who is threatening employees, damaging property, carrying a weapon, or creating an immediate danger.
The response must be proportionate to the situation.
Where enforcement is necessary, it should be professional, lawful, and respectful.
Where medical, mental-health, shelter, or emergency assistance is more appropriate, security personnel should recognize that as well.
Accountability and compassion are not opposites. Good security requires both.
Security Officers Are Often Part of the Frontline Response
Private security personnel frequently become an important link between businesses, vulnerable individuals, police, emergency medical services, and community organizations.
They may be the first person to discover someone experiencing medical distress.
They may encounter the same vulnerable individual repeatedly and recognize when that person's condition has changed.
They may de-escalate a situation before it becomes violent.
They may also be responsible for determining when a situation has exceeded the role of private security and requires police, paramedics, firefighters, or specialized social services.
For this reason, training matters.
Security officers should be equipped not only with knowledge of property protection and enforcement but also with skills in de-escalation, communication, situational awareness, emergency response, documentation, mental-health awareness, and professional judgment.
Security officers are not social workers, healthcare professionals, or police officers, and they should not be expected to replace those services.
But properly trained security personnel can become an important part of a coordinated community response.
We Need an Integrated Approach
Homelessness cannot be solved by one organization or profession.
Police cannot solve it alone.
Private security cannot solve it alone.
Shelters cannot solve it alone.
Hospitals cannot solve it alone.
Businesses cannot solve it alone.
Governments cannot solve it without strong community partnerships.
A sustainable response requires an integrated strategy involving housing providers, healthcare professionals, mental-health and addiction services, nonprofit organizations, businesses, governments, law enforcement, Indigenous and community organizations, and private security.
Each has a different responsibility, but those responsibilities must connect.
Housing strategies must connect with healthcare.
Healthcare must connect with mental-health and addiction services.
Community services must connect with emergency responders.
Public-safety strategies must connect with social supports.
Businesses and security professionals must know who to contact when an individual clearly needs more than removal from a property.
Without coordination, the same person may repeatedly move through businesses, shelters, hospitals, police interactions, and public spaces without achieving lasting stability.
We Should Measure Outcomes, Not Just Incidents
Security organizations must document incidents accurately. Incident statistics help identify patterns, allocate resources, assess risk, and protect clients.
But from a broader community-policy perspective, the number of removals should never be confused with the number of problems solved.
If one individual is removed from different properties twenty times, twenty security interventions may have occurred—but the underlying problem may remain unchanged.
Long-term success should also consider questions such as:
Did the individual obtain stable housing?
Were appropriate health or addiction services available?
Was repeat emergency-service use reduced?
Did the person stop repeatedly returning to unsafe situations?
Were businesses and community spaces safer over time?
Those outcomes tell us more about whether a strategy is truly working.
The Role of Lions Security Incorporated
At Lions Security Incorporated, our responsibility is first and foremost the safety and security of the people, organizations, and properties we serve.
That responsibility includes responding firmly when circumstances require enforcement.
But professionalism also means recognizing the human being involved in every encounter.
A security officer can enforce property rules without humiliation.
An officer can ask someone to leave without unnecessary confrontation.
An officer can protect a business while recognizing when someone requires emergency assistance.
And an organization can support its clients while still advocating for broader, coordinated solutions to recurring community challenges.
We believe effective security is not measured only by how quickly a person is removed from a property.
It is also reflected in whether situations are handled safely, lawfully, proportionately, and professionally.
Moving From Reaction to Strategy
Homelessness is a difficult issue because it sits at the intersection of public safety, housing, health, economics, social policy, and human dignity.
There will be situations in which firm enforcement is necessary.
There will also be situations in which assistance, medical attention, shelter, or compassionate intervention is the more appropriate response.
Strong communities must be capable of doing both.
The objective should not simply be to move a vulnerable person out of sight.
The greater goal should be to create coordinated systems that reduce the likelihood that the same individual will continue returning to the same cycle of crisis.
Security can manage an immediate situation. A community working together can help change the conditions that created it.
That is the difference between repeatedly responding to homelessness and developing a strategy for addressing it.
President Leo Ekhaguere
President & CEO
Lions Security Incorporated
