Former residents of Hastings Street encampment prevented from returning

Former residents of the East Hastings Street encampment who tried returning to the area over the weekend had city crews chase them out once again, says an organizer with the Stop The Sweeps Coalition.

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Ryan Sudds was in Oppenheimer Park on Monday distributing coffee, snacks, tents and blankets to those in need.

“When the city was coming around yesterday in the rain, people were angry, people were upset, people were fed up. It has been five days now and people are getting angrier and angrier about what’s happening,” said Sudds, adding that many of those who were on Hastings Street are taking what is left of their belongings and setting up in other areas.

“For the folks who are getting displaced on the block, and they don’t have shelter or housing, the city isn’t offering them anything besides maybe (suggesting), ‘you can go to the CRAB Park,’” said Sudds.

After 80 tent structures were dismantled on Hastings Street last week there are some new people at the encampment at CRAB Park in recent days, said housing advocate Fiona York.

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“People don’t really have the capacity to go from shelter to shelter, checking to see what’s open or has space,” said York. “And (they) don’t have email or data or a phone to check. Especially in the pouring rain.”

The City of Vancouver said 18 people who were displaced from the East Hastings Street encampment last week have accepted offers of shelter.

“I don’t think there was any co-ordination in terms of spaces, resources, or anything else. The community responded by trying to provide replacement tents and sleeping bags,” said York, adding that some warming centres were closed over the long weekend due to “staff shortages” even with the rainfall warning in effect.

The 92-bed shelter run by Union Gospel Mission had already been turning away people for months before the decampment.

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UGM has been putting down mats in common spaces and hallways at its shelter to give more people a warm, dry place to stay, according to president Dean Kurpjuweit.

“We all understand that encampments are less than ideal, but on the same hand, if you are going to do that, you need to have enough spots for people to go to and there are not enough spots.”

UGM spokesperson Nicole Mucci said finding space for people can be complicated. It can mean having to match individuals to shelters according to different backgrounds, such as gender, or needs, such as having experienced violence or needing storage for belongings.

Mayor Ken Sim said the fire danger and increased crime meant the encampment had to be dismantled.

Conservative estimates by the Vancouver Police Department linked about one-third of the 80 tents in the encampment to criminal activity, Sim said Monday.

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“When you look at all those tents, not all of them are housing people that are vulnerable that legitimately need help.”

Sim said that city workers had been offering shelter spaces to people living in the tents for about eight months.

“This didn’t happen overnight. This was not a new, knee-jerk thing.”

And while some individual shelters may be at capacity, there are others with space for those who want them.

“When you look at it holistically, when you look at the whole area, we were finding spaces,” said Sim. “It may not have been right there, per se, but down the street or in a different neighbourhood, there were spaces.”

Kevin Barlow, executive director of the Hastings Crossing BIA, said he told Sim before the decampment that “simply forcing people out of tents in the DTES will mean they will go elsewhere throughout the city, and then tens of thousands of business owners and residents will be up in arms.”

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Barlow said he presented several “stop gap harm reduction options,” including two case studies. One was from Honolulu where they retrofitted decommissioned transit buses to become stop gap shelters to keep people off the sidewalks. These buses can be parked on the side of the street or in parkettes, vacant parking lots or in parks.

The other involves a cruise ship or floating hotel type concept that would require federal involvement, said Barlow.

During a Vancouver Sun town hall last week, Premier David Eby said the removal of tents and structures on Hastings was “unfortunately necessary.”

He cited the fire danger, as well as reports of sexual assaults and weapons seized from tents.

“There were two possible choices. One was leave the encampment there, hope we don’t have a catastrophic fire where people actually die, people aren’t murdered, that another building doesn’t burn down because there’s a fire in a tent,” he said.

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“Or what happened yesterday … to say, ’Look, we have emergency shelter. We can get you inside but you can’t stay here. It’s not safe for the broader community.”

Eby added that there are plans to open 110 new units of housing a month over the next three months.

With files from The Canadian Press and Dan Fumano

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