Field kitchen feeding a need in tent city
Ban at Downtown Eastside camp means no cooking, propane or open flames
Tent city protesters on the Downtown Eastside are planning to set up a sanitary field kitchen to feed their community in the weeks and months to come.
Friday afternoon, Potluck Cafe Society director of culinary programs Drew Borus led a demonstration for kitchen volunteers on sanitation and how to cook for a crowd with easily-found ingredients.
“We have 72 tents and about 139 people here and there is nowhere to cook,” said Samona Marsh, a tent city resident and kitchen volunteer. “People are hungry and they have to be fed.”
Many residents say the camp is safer than the area’s single room occupancy hotels or camping alone.
“You get more bugs crawling on you inside the SROs than you do sleeping outside, and that’s not right,” said Marsh, a former caterer from Yukon.
There are no toilet facilities and no clean place to prepare food on a large scale. The City of Vancouver declined to say whether it will provide toilets on the site, but did say the laneway behind the camp is being cleaned and flushed daily.
Members of the Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services visit the camp twice daily to ensure the site is safe and staff works with people who need access to housing, according to the city.
The city originally posted regulations allowing the use of propane barbecues at least three metres from any structure, tent or tarp, but a safety checklist released July 11 banned all cooking, open flames and the use of propane.
The camp — at 58 West Hastings St. — has cold running water and two electrical outlets.
“Members of the camp have asked us to show them how to cook healthy food,” Borus said. “They are getting food donations from the area’s businesses, but that’s not a sustainable option.”
Borus instructed volunteers in hand-washing procedures, creating a sanitary workspace and cooked a lentil stew with vegetables.
“Without propane, we are stuck with electric and induction burners, and that means they can only cook a fraction of the amount they need — and that’s if the city allows them to cook at all.”
The cooking ban means camp residents are being directed to the Downtown Eastside soup kitchens, said Colin Stansfield, Potluck executive-director.
“We can teach them how to wash their hands properly, and that’s what we’ve been left with,” he said.