Vancouver city council has approved a plan to address the entrenched homeless camp in Oppenheimer Park.
Non-Partisan Association (NPA) and Green councillors Lisa Dominato and Michael Wiebe brought the joint motion to city hall Wednesday that called for a “collaborative decampment” plan.
However, councillors amended that to be a collaborative plan “with options that are better for people dealing with homelessness in parks than their current situation,” while still restoring the park for wider public use.
The Vancouver Park Board, which has jurisdiction over the park, has refused to seek an injunction to clear the campers, and instead called for a multi-jurisdictional task homelessness task force.
The Park Board voted to move forward with a “collaborative decampment” at an emergency meeting last month that heard from police, fire and city officials who spoke to “deteriorating conditions” in the park.
The motion would also see the city create a “dedicated, coordinated cross-jurisdictional Homeless Outreach Services Team” (HOST) “that serves to connect unsheltered and sheltered people to appropriate housing, health and support services.”
And it calls for the city to work more closely with provincial ministers to look “aggressively” for land and funding for modular housing, while trying to find winter shelter options for the city’s 600 street homeless.
Chrissy Brett, a spokesperson for the campers, called the motion a good compromise.
“We thought that it was amazing that they’re realizing that there are 600 homeless people that have been identified … and that they’re looking at the larger picture,” she said.
Strathcona Business Improvement Association executive director Theodora Lamb said it is a sign council is taking homelessness seriously.
“This is not an issue that just impacts two city square blocks,” she said.
“This is absolutely city wide. Businesses, citizens, residents everywhere across the city of Vancouver need to wake up to the fact that what’s happening here is reflective of how we treat our communities across the city.”
The motion also calls on city staff to look for ways to expand the peer-based Park Stewardship pilot program, with the goal of providing access to showers and bathrooms at the field houses in select parks, with peer stewards working to keep them clean.
It also calls for a review of services in the Downtown Eastside, and for the city to support the Vancouver police in their call for greater mental health services.
The city’s park board managed to convince a number of campers to move into Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms in August, but the number of homeless people and tents in the park has been climbing since then.
The Vancouver police have linked the park to growing crime and disorder in the DTES, arguing that it acts as a “magnet” for criminal elements.
-With files from Neetu Garcha