On the public agenda for the Vancouver Park Board’s first meeting of 2020 Monday, a key issue is noticeably absent: what to do about Oppenheimer Park.
Calls for the board to address a long-standing homeless encampment have been growing for weeks and reached a tipping point with a homicide in the Downtown Eastside public park shortly into the new year.
A majority of the commissioners continue to say they’re waiting for a third-party review of the situation to begin, leaving campers and activists to claim they’re in control of the park.
It all makes little sense to Tricia Barker, one of two commissioners in support of a court injunction that would remove the campers and put them into housing.
“This is a park board jurisdiction, and we are here to make clean and safe parks,” she said. “Having people live in the park is not our mandate, or what we’re supposed to be doing.
“A park is not a campground. A park is for the people who live around the neighbourhood.”
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Those neighbourhood residents have told Global News they feel increasingly unsafe due to the encampment of over 100 people, which has seen a rise in police and fire calls since last year over assaults, shootings and tent fires from propane heaters and barbecues.
Over a hundred other people used to live in the camp until last summer when the park board requested people move into single-room occupancy housing that had been made available for them.
Those campers took the city up on the offer, while the rest refused to move and the camp began to grow again.
Since then, the park board voted in favour of finding a solution through Indigenous reconciliation in collaboration with the city that seeks housing supports first.
The solution is set to be determined with the help of a third-party, but the board has not even contracted anyone yet.
The urgency hasn’t appeared to increase with the death of 62-year-old Jesus Cristobal-Esteban, who succumbed to injuries sustained in an assault in the park on New Year’s Day.
That homicide prompted the Strathcona Business Improvement Association to write a letter to the parks board, city council and the city manager pleading for action.
More than two weeks after that letter was sent, Strathcona BIA executive director Theodora Lamb says she still hasn’t received a response.
“I feel the businesses who operate in and around Oppenheimer Park — many of them who’ve been around for decades — have earned the right to hear from their elected officials on how their community is being taken care of,” she said.
Lamb says business owners in the area around the park are nervous about escalating crime and a dwindling customer base who are scared to venture to the area.
That’s why the lack of communication about any kind of plan is disturbing to her, though she’s hopeful the park board will address the growing pressure on Monday.
“I think between our letter and the response from the public, I can’t imagine them not discussing it together as a group,” she said.
“I also have no doubt that people are working on it, but this is a public issue. The businesses around the park are being affected. … Whatever the solution needs to be dealt with sooner than later.”
Campers in the park argue existing housing and shelter space being offered by the city’s outreach teams is not adequate and doesn’t address the needs of campers who are elderly, disabled or suffering from mental health issues.
They say the city should allow the encampment to continue as a community-run space free from government oversight.
But Barker says that’s not sustainable or safe for the campers, and will continue to push for a more immediate solution that restores the park back to the public.
“This would never happen in Kitsilano or anywhere else because our park rangers would make sure people have a better place to stay, or are connected with people who can help them,” she said. “That’s always been our practice.
“We want to get this resolved as soon as possible. We’ve already had one death there, we don’t want another one.”
—With files from Kristen Robinson
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