Police order tent city dwellers to vacate CRAB Park property
One person was arrested and later released without charges Tuesday as Vancouver police evicted a tent city encampment in the Downtown Eastside.
Vancouver officers arrived to CRAB Park on Tuesday around 6 a.m. and began ordering tent-city residents off the property. Residents were told anyone who didn’t leave the camp would be arrested, and that anyone who required housing could identify themselves to an officer.
Last week, a Supreme Court injunction was granted to the
Vancouver-Fraser Port Authority, ordering those in the tent encampment to leave the park by Saturday. As a result, the almost 100 people camped in the DTES park moved to an empty lot they believe wasn’t covered by the injunction, adjacent to the park.
The court injunction says allowing campers to remain on port authority land would create the same health and safety issues that prompted closure of a much larger encampment at nearby Oppenheimer Park.
Chrissy Brett, who speaks for the campers, said last week that the injunction didn’t include details about possible housing options and she feared the evicted residents would end up on the street.
The ruling referred to housing offered to former Oppenheimer Park residents, but Brett said housing provided by the B.C. government doesn’t work for everyone.
Housing shouldn’t have restrictions on how or by whom it’s used, she said, and also must include greater access to health supports.
According to a statement by advocates with the CRAB Park/ Namegans tent city, no injunction had been issued for the lot occupied by the encampment Tuesday morning.
Waterfront Road was closed from the Vancouver Convention Centre to Main Street, according to VPD Sgt. Aaron Roed.
Roed said officers were “working with the demonstrators at clearing out the properties adjacent to CRAB Park,” he said in an email.
“In recent days, campers had broken into an adjacent Port property that was locked and secured. This morning, police informed those campers that the break-in and their presence in that area could result in mischief charges.”