Tent city residents defy injunction because there’s ‘nowhere else to go’
A day after a judge ordered campers in the parking lot at a Gastown area park to move out within three days, none of the tents had been taken down, said a housing advocate.
At a meeting to discuss the injunction on Wednesday evening, with the 130-150 residents of the tent city located near CRAB (Create a Real, Available Beach) Park, the mood was “sombre,” said advocate Fiona York, who works part time with the Carnegie Community Action Project.
“They have nowhere else to go,” she said.
The residents, who have been living in the tents that now number 92, will each have to decide whether or not to abide by the B.C. Supreme Court ruling, she said. She saw the end of the 72-hour notice to vacate, which she called the product of a “colonial court system,” as the earliest police could remove them.
“They have the option to forcibly remove people, and that’s what happened in other tent cities,” said York. “But these days people are aware of police brutality and how police treat racialized people.”
She estimated 70 to 80 per cent of CRAB Park residents are Indigenous.
“We’re expecting everyone to comply with the court ordered injunction and are working to assess next steps,” Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Tania Visintin said in an email.
The port authority didn’t respond to a request for comment.
York said B.C. Housing hasn’t been in contact with the residents and she knows of no offers of housing. She said the residents prefer the parking lot tent city to sleeping in other parts of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where they’re asked to move their belongings every morning, or in shelters, single-room occupancy buildings or hotels, because they’re inadequate spaces and have restrictions.
She said some of the 200-plus units offered to those cleared out of Oppenheimer Park last month lacked private bathrooms and kitchens, or cooking facilities, and had restrictive policies, such as no partners, no guests, no pets and no drug use, and some were infested with bed bugs.
York also said people living in tent cities shouldn’t be targeted for housing at the exclusion of the 2,500 others who live on the street in Vancouver and are just as in need of a roof over their heads.
The Vancouver and Fraser Port Authority requested the injunction for the Crown land, officially called Portside Park.
B.C. Housing, in an emailed statement, said “outreach workers have been connecting with campers” and “will continue to help people experiencing homelessness.”
It listed the number of homes that agencies have opened over the past two years and said it had “secured 11 sites with 825 spaces” where “vulnerable individuals” could maintain social distancing during COVID-19, adding that a “limited” number of those were available.
It wasn’t clear if B.C. Housing had secured new units for people in CRAB Park. A spokesman didn’t return a request for comment.
“Homelessness is a complex crisis that won’t be solved overnight or through a single measure,” the statement said.
A request to speak to Celine Mauboules, director of Vancouver’s homelessness services and affordable housing programs, was referred to B.C. Housing because the tent city is on Crown land.
Before granting the injunction, the judge heard that CRAB Park was subject to the same COVID -19 health and safety concerns as Oppenheimer Park, and that area residents complained about the lack of physical distancing and washroom facilities, a bonfire, extra garbage, loud music and noise, and discarded needles.
Lawyers for the homeless argued their clients felt safer in tents than on the street, but the judge concluded there would be irreparable harm to the port should the encampment remain in place.