Opinion: Vancouver has a quarter of the region’s population, and more than 75 per cent of its shelter spaces. But shelter capacity is still a challenge, and it's not clear where people can go.
Once again this week, the sight of City of Vancouver workers hauling away homeless people’s tents and possessions — this time on the eve of a cold snap — has raised pointed questions without clear or immediate answers.
Why now?
Where should these people go?
What is the plan?
Is there a plan?
Park rangers, assisted by Vancouver police officers, descended on Oppenheimer Park this week, instructing dozens of homeless people living there to take down their tents in order to comply with a bylaw dictating that anyone camping in parks must remove their shelters each morning.
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Some applauded the move, including one Downtown Eastside resident walking his dog through Oppenheimer who complained he wants to be able to access his neighbourhood’s only green space once again. Others decried the decampment as inhumane.
On Wednesday, for a second day in a row, a large group of rangers and police officers were back in Oppenheimer.
Watching them force people to pack up their tents and move on “was so dehumanizing,” said Amanda Burrows, who was at the park in the morning to observe.
“And it’s all so disorganized. They tell so many different, random things. … The park rangers don’t come across like they have accurate information,” said Burrows, the executive-director of First United, a community service provider with a 135-year history in the neighbourhood.
“They’re saying that there are shelters. There aren’t. It’s truly bizarre to see park rangers in a city enforcing this bylaw and not having social workers. No outreach, no coordination … it comes across as unorganized.”
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said the enforcement of the city bylaw in Oppenheimer Park is “part of the ongoing effort to enforce bylaws in Vancouver.”
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“This bylaw is designed to strike a balance in managing the many community needs for our limited park spaces, with a focus on under-served groups such as those living in the Downtown Eastside,” Sim said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
The city said Wednesday that it is opening 67 temporary winter response shelter spaces and six warming centres prior to an anticipated cold snap. Sim said that another 120 extreme-weather response beds were being made available by provincially funded community service providers and faith-based organizations.
Many are also taking this opportunity to point out the disproportionate burden borne by the City of Vancouver — and, even more specifically, the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood that includes Oppenheimer Park — in trying to provide shelter for those sleeping rough.
In an emailed statement last week responding to questions about encampments in general, Vancouver’s deputy city manager Sandra Singh cited some of the numbers: The City of Vancouver has roughly 25 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s overall population, but more than 75 per cent of the region’s operating shelter spaces, and more than 77 per cent of the region’s supportive housing units.
Vancouver continues to work with the provincial government to add more spaces in addition to the 500 temporary shelter spaces currently available around the clock, Singh said. The city has supported the creation of 346 year-round shelter spaces and 97 seasonal beds since 2020. This is in addition to investing millions in producing more social and supportive housing, more than any other municipality in the region.
“This demonstrates that the city’s approach to homelessness is to build housing and enable shelters so people can come inside, but we cannot manage this crisis without senior government and, moving forward, a regional approach,” Singh said.
The city does not support large, entrenched encampments, Singh said. “We have serious concerns regarding large encampments given the history of health and safety incidents associated with them, consistently demonstrated through Vancouver’s past experiences.”
People can find details about shelter availability by texting or calling the city’s community services line at 211, or checking the Twitter account of the Homelessness Services of Association of B.C. at twitter.com/_HSABC.
Other public figures are questioning the enforcement approach.
The Vancouver decampment got the attention of B.C. Green party leader Sonia Furstenau in Victoria, who issued a statement Wednesday that said: “The recent actions against Vancouver’s unhoused population, involving the confiscation of their belongings during a period of extreme cold, are deeply disturbing. At a time when basic necessities like tents and tarps are crucial for survival, forcing individuals to search for new shelter is not only inhumane but counterproductive. What purpose does this serve?”
Kareem Allam, who managed the successful 2022 municipal campaign that saw Mayor Sim and his party ABC Vancouver sweep to big wins on city council, park board and school board, said that after the city cleared the large encampment on Hastings Street last April without places for everyone to go, it was foreseeable that people would end up in parks.
“We’ve decamped Hastings, now people are going to parks. Now that we’ve decamped the parks, does anybody think they are not going to end up on Hastings Street again?” Allam said.
“We seem to be going around in circles here, we’re not actually solving anything. All we’re doing is creating more strife, more anxiety for very vulnerable people.”
Allam said he has “seen no justification” from public officials that explains why “two days before it’s supposed to be minus-13 (degree Celsius), that was the day to decamp.
“I’ve seen no explanation for why we’re taking away warm sleeping bags from homeless people,” Allam said. “I think everyone’s owed an explanation. I don’t think parks is an appropriate place for them to be. But there’s literally nowhere for these people to go. There’s just nowhere.”
Few people believe that people living in parks is a good thing. But there is more than one way to clear a park, says Stephanie Allen. As a vice-president at B.C. Housing in 2020, Allen coordinated the decampment of a previous long-standing tent city in Oppenheimer Park that grew to hundreds of people at one point.
That decampment process unfolded over several days following months of outreach and preparation, Allen said this week, and incorporated social workers, Indigenous leaders, peer support, the Vancouver Police Department, and others.
“It wasn’t perfect,” Allen said, but that 2020 process was “based on compassion. It was very peaceful, and VPD was a partner in that work.”
What Allen sees in the process unfolding this week, she said, looks “more like the removal of survival resources, and less of a housing program.”
“This is just enforcing bylaws. This is not a program to make sure people get housed, mental health support, medicine, and compassion, which, frankly, people need in these circumstances,” said Allen, who now does independent advisory work.
“It begs the question: What’s the plan?”
— with files from Denise Ryan
dfumano@postmedia.com
twitter.com/fumano
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