RCMP and firefighters have cordoned off a controversial homeless camp in Maple Ridge, have begun enforcing an evacuation order that was issued on Friday.
Shortly after noon, members of the Ridge Meadows RCMP and fire department surrounded the camp, and have brought in trucks of steel fencing to close off the property.
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Camper Dwayne Martin said he believes officials want to “mow this place down,” and vowed to fight the evacuation.
“The fire department, they won’t give us any kind of means of keeping warm,” he said.
“For two years I’ve asked the fire department, what can I use, two years they say, ‘Nothing.’ All they say is what I can’t have. Well they can’t have my place, they can’t come in my place no more.”
In a media release on Saturday, the City of Maple Ridge said it had evacuated its Emergency Support Services (ESS), which would register campers and ensure they had somewhere warm to sleep for the next 48 hours.
Campers will be temporarily moved to a property on Lougheed Highway under the management of the Salvation Army. The city said the Salvation Army will then gear up “local resources to provide support services.”
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Selina Robinson also released a statement on Saturday, pointing to “dozens” of former Anita Place campers that were moved into modular housing in Maple Ridge last fall.
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“The safety of the community, and the residents being evacuated, is our immediate focus,” said Robinson.
“In the longer term, this reinforces the need to act quickly and build more supportive housing in Maple Ridge… We must move quickly and work together to get more people into the safe and supportive homes they urgently need.”
The evacuation order was issued by the provincial fire commissioner over “an imminent and serious danger to life and property” in the wake of three fires this week at the two-year-old camp.
No one was hurt in the fires, but the city says a number of propane tanks were found on site in the wake of the fires.
On Friday, the city also said it was doubling the security presence around the site, in the wake of growing conflict between neighbourhood residents and campers.
Campers allege that some of the recent fires may have been caused by arsonists.
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On Friday night, police were called to the camp, where a bloodied man was treated by paramedics.
Last weekend, there were also tense moments as police enforced an injunction at the camp that was issued on Feb. 8, relating to fire hazards including electrical equipment and propane tanks on site.
Crews removed heating equipment, including shared tent that campers were using as a warming area.
Alliance Against Displacement, an activist group that frequently speaks for the camp, said that move actually made the camp more dangerous, and could have contributed to the fires this week.