A bylaw that aspires, in title, to enhance the safety of streets in Prince George, B.C., has had the opposite effect for many unhoused and vulnerable people in the city, two reports have found.
In its first three months, enforcement of the new ‘Safe Streets Bylaw’ has disproportionately targeted women and people who “look” low-income, according to the B.C. Assembly of First Nations (B.C. AFN).
Enforcement data analyzed by Joe Hermer, Sociology Department chair at the University of Toronto in Scarborough, Ont., further suggests the bylaw legitimizes a “blanket prohibition on unsheltered people” in public space in Prince George.
“It just confirms what we’ve always stated. This bylaw is absurd,” said B.C. AFN Regional Chief Terry Teegee in an interview. “It discriminates not only Indigenous peoples … but all homeless people and that’s really the issue here.”
The controversial Safe Streets Bylaw, passed last summer, imposed tighter restrictions on what activities can take place in public spaces. Those activities included sitting, lying down, panhandling, drug use, graffiti, and the lighting of fires.
“Council has deemed it desirable to enact a Bylaw for the protection, promotion and preservation of the health and safety of the habitants of the City of Prince George to peacefully use and enjoy public spaces in the City,” the bylaw states.
From March 8-11, six researchers conducted 13 interviews in “hot spots” for enforcement of the new bylaw. The findings were published Monday in the B.C. AFN’s report: Experiences With Bylaw in Prince George.
In his own report released at the same time, Hermer analyzed 427 bylaw enforcement events in Prince George between Aug. 31 and Dec. 8, 2021, which the city linked to the Safe Streets Bylaw through a freedom of information request.
Both reports were damning.
“I question why the bylaw was brought in at the time it was, which was last summertime, at the end of a pandemic, during a housing crisis, during an overdose crisis,” Hermer told Global News. “It just seemed to be a mean thing to do.”
No one at the City of Prince George was available to respond to the allegations on Tuesday.
“The City of Prince George learned of these reports (Monday) just before the B.C. Assembly of First Nations press conference,” wrote senior communications officer Michael Kellett in an email.
“While the City has not officially received these reports as correspondence from the B.C. AFN, we did receive copies from members of the media. In the coming days, staff will be carefully reviewing the reports. We will offer no further comment until this review has been completed.”
In previous interviews with other news outlets, Prince George’s mayor and manager of bylaw services have repeated that the Safe Streets Bylaw is intended as an educational tool, with ticketing used as a last resort.
Hermer, however, found that enforcement had not taken a clear educational approach and had systemically focused on moving unhoused people from public view and dismantling their shelters. “Almost without exception,” he added, the targets of enforcement were not provided advice or assistance, even when they appeared to be in distress.
His report also concluded that the “informal mode” of bylaw enforcement shields enforcement officers from accountability and legal scrutiny.
Surveys conducted for the B.C. AFN’s report found enforcement of the Safe Streets Bylaw seriously compromised the health and safety of the unhoused by confiscating their personal belongings, including tents and tarps used to keep warm in the winter. The seizing of their belongings, said respondents, further added to their financial stress.
Some of those interviewed said the bylaw has made it harder for them to use drugs safely because groups of people are often broken up by enforcement officers, meaning they must use alone and out of sight.
Seventy per cent of respondents also said they did not understand what the bylaw allows or forbids them to do.
“It’s just displacing them from one part of the city to another part of the city, not offering any help,” said Teegee. “We are not squatters in these lands we call Canada, British Columbia or Prince George, and I think it’s really demeaning to many of the homeless people and in particular, Indigenous peoples.”
Survey respondents for B.C. AFN recommended the funding spent on enforcing the bylaw be reallocated to harm reduction, street cleanup and permanent shelter for the unhoused.
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