The Vancouver Park Board is looking to clarify existing guidelines and introduce new rules around overnight sheltering in the city’s public spaces.
A motion going to the board proposes changes to the Park Control By-Law, and is set to be tabled Monday night.
“The bylaws that are being formalized or discussed later tonight are largely all in place at the moment, but they’ve been delivered and updated through various channels like memos and stuff like that and not necessarily clearly laid out in a bylaw. So, because it’s not in a bylaw, it can cause specific challenges with enforcement, because the old ones were a bit too general and they’ve been updated over time,” explained Brennan Bastyovanszky, chair of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation.
“Because there’s been so many evolutions and refinements over time, we really wanted to document what current practices are and the bylaw is a way to allow it to be easier for enforcement because then it’s clear to people sheltering in parks.”
Restricting all overnight camping in Queen Elizabeth Park and VanDusen Botanical Garden is just one addition mentioned in the motion.
Other points include not allowing anyone to camp within 25 metres of a playground, school, or child-care facility, as well as limiting the footprint of campers to 10×10 spaces.
Bastyovanszky says the Vancouver Park Board is trying to balance the needs of the city’s unhoused population and residents of neighbourhoods who want to use these spaces.
“They may not agree on what’s in there. But for safety’s sake, we’ve had input from Vancouver Coastal Health, the police, and from our fire services. So it is an informed bylaw decision that’s coming before the board,” he explained.
“Again, parks are not meant to be a permanent solution to the housing crisis. And so, we’re trying to balance, again, from a governance perspective, we’re trying to balance out the needs of those that shelter in parks, and those users of the park more generally, those who live in the neighborhood. There’s over 10,000 people that have CRAB Park as their like local green space and access to the water and many residents don’t feel safe to go down there.”
He notes people are allowed to shelter in parks overnight. However, they must pack up and leave those spaces by a certain time to allow others to be able to use these public spaces.
Currently, CRAB Park is Vancouver’s only full-time legal encampment. The space recently underwent a “clean up” by the city, with officials now looking to limit the number of people who are allowed to move back in.
Bastyovanszky says he understands housing is a subject that needs more attention. However, he says “the park board was never meant to solve the city’s housing crisis.”
“We’re playing our part with our limited resources and it’s really the city and the province that need to address the housing and mental health and the opioid crisis that we’re faced with. Any kind of sheltering that happens in parks is a download of costs onto the park board. So when we talk about the park board being underfunded, a lot of resources are going into trying to manage the sheltering in place and the bylaw enforcement around that,” he explained.
“I’m sure everyone in the city would rather that there be enough housing for everyone and that our parks are in wonderful state. But as long as it’s happening and we continue to deal with a housing crisis, then those costs are downloaded onto the park board, and we’re incredibly underfunded as it is, let alone trying to do this. That’s not part of our core services. We’re doing the best we can.”
He says efforts to help those experiencing homelessness are carried out in the most compassionate way possible, and that those measures are “trauma informed” and include other agencies.
-With files from Srushti Gangdev