Nearly a year after B.C. Premier David Eby pledged to address homeless encampments on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, there appears to still be no end in sight for campers in CRAB Park.
The tents in the park’s northwest corner have been in place since May of 2021. In January 2022, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the residents couldn’t be displaced until there was adequate housing for them.
In May 2022, a man was murdered in CRAB Park, and the encampment was the scene of a stabbing spree last October and a major tent fire in December.
Last November, shortly before being sworn in as premier, Eby told Global News he didn’t think encampments were safe or a solution to homelessness, saying, “What we need to do is get people out of the tents, into decent shelter and into social housing and supportive housing if they need it.”
In the year since, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services said it has responded to nine fires at the park, and remains concerned about the potential for more.
“But what we do see, and as a fire service what we continue to be concerned about, is open flame, the storage of combustible materials, the tents that are too close together, and really what makes up an encampment, so what are they using for structures,” Vancouver Fire Chief Karen Fry said.
“We have fires that easily spread and people get injured.”
The City of Vancouver said it has made 48 unique offers of shelter to residents. Eight people have accepted shelter, it said, and six have been placed in housing.
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“I think we’d like to see it closed, and the park no longer have an encampment as soon as possible,” ABC Vancouver Coun. Mike Klassen told Global News.
“I can’t promise any timelines, but certainly we are working with our provincial partners to really try and see if we can make a change in those people’s lives.”
B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said the province remains focused on finding a dignified solution for people living in the park, and that it was making progress.
“That site had over 80 people at one point, and I believe now it’s at 37, and we’ve been offering people housing, and people have been taking up that housing,” Kahlon said.
“We are looking at what is required from us legally in order to be able to take steps to ensure everybody in the community is safe.”
But with winter closing in, Vancouver Green Party Coun. Pete Fry said the province needs to get creative and act with more urgency.
Fry pointed to the recent Metro Vancouver homeless count, which found the Greater Vancouver region’s homeless population had jumped by nearly a third since 2020, reaching its highest level on record.
“I know we all want to build permanent housing, but we can’t seem to do that fast enough, so what do we do in the interim? What do we people do right here, right now? Because the winter shelter system is not really the ultimate solution,” he said.
“A lot of folks are well within their rights to reject it because a lot of the shelter system means you can go there at night, and then you have to pack up and walk around the city for the rest of the day until you can come back at the end of the evening and that’s not really the best outcome for a lot of folks — they’d rather live in a tent in an encampment.”
Fry wants to see the province and city move aggressively to adopt rapid shelter or tiny house village models used in some U.S. states.
He said the province has been resistant to the idea, but the speed and low cost of units means they’re worth experimenting with.
“They’re throwing up these sort of tiny shelters that have locking doors, roofs, they’re insulated and dry and they have heat and power, and they provide a dignified solution that can be assembled in about half an hour and cost about $15,000,” he said.
Vancouver is currently working on a tiny shelter village pilot project, but the 10-unit initiative is behind schedule and comes with a $1.5 million price tag.
In the meantime, the City of Vancouver is taking action this month to try and prevent tents from spreading beyond the designated encampment area, protected by the Supreme Court ruling, handing out notices to people in the park’s south end warning them that structures left up after 8 a.m. could be removed.
Rangers and city staff are also slated to conduct a cleanup in the designated encampment area, including the removal of structures that don’t comply with city bylaws.
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