Most campers leave, no hurry to evict those who linger
Tuesday was deadline to vacate tent city; province offers housing
The B.C. government has no immediate plans to seek an enforcement order to remove remaining campers from the Victoria courthouse lawn, Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Monday.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson ordered the site cleared by Monday, but Coleman said the government will wait several days to make sure that everybody who wants a home has found one.
“Then I’ll make an assessment on whether we need to deal with any enforcement order or anything like that,” he said
Coleman said that, as of noon Monday, about 70 people from the camp had moved into the former Central Care Home at 844 Johnson St., while others were in the process of leaving the camp. “We’ve made excellent progress, actually, and we’ve seen very good co-operation from the campers,” he said. “So there’s no need to go for any type of enforcement order at this point.”
A few tents and structures remained, with metal fencing barricading the bare ground where tents had been removed. As disposal crews heaved barrel-loads of refuse from camp sites into three large bins along Quadra Street, at least one camper said he and a few others don’t plan to leave.
Coleman said those who refuse housing or remain at the site in protest will be asked to leave.
“We hopefully won’t have to deal with it in any provocative way, but we’ll see,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on it in the next few days and make the decision.”
The government says it has housed 260 people from the encampment since October. It purchased Central Care Home for $13.5 million on Johnson Street, Mount Edwards Court Care Home on Vancouver Street for $3.9 million and Super 8 hotel on Douglas Street for $6.5 million.
Kelly Newhook, executive director of Together Against Poverty Society, credited the tent city with drawing attention to the problem of homelessness in Victoria and spurring the government to action. “It’s been by far the most investment that we’ve seen in social housing ever in our region,” she said.
She cautioned, however, that the homelessness problem exceeds the housing spaces provided and that people will need help long after the encampment is removed. “This is not going to solve homelessness in our region and I hope people aren’t foolish enough to think it is,” she said.
Coleman said the government will assess its plans for two shelters that were established at the former Boys and Girls Club on Yates Street and the former youth custody centre in View Royal at a cost of more than $1.3 million. The youth custody centre has proved effective and could be renovated further to provide a more permanent housing facility, he said.
“We won’t take it out of our inventory right away,” he said. “We’ll see how the transition goes.”
The government has been spending about $100,000 a month to provide services to the tent city, such as security, pest control, garbage collection, washrooms, water and power. A further $84,000 was spent on social-service workers to link campers with housing, health care and other services.
A final tally of costs will be released once the camp is dismantled, the government said in a statement.
Coleman was unable to provide a cost estimate or a timeline for cleaning up the courthouse lawn. He said the property will be fenced off once the last campers leave so that clean-up and landscaping can begin.