The only legal encampment in Vancouver could be closing down early next month according to the city’s park board.
At a press event Wednesday, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation announced that the encampment at Crab Park that has been in place since 2021 will be closing by Nov. 7, 2024, however, they are working with the remaining seven people still living in the encampment to work on “how best to support each of them through the transition.”
“As part of its work to support people experiencing homelessness across the city and here in Crab Park, the city’s homelessness outreach team has been working intensely with people in the designated area since April,” said the Deputy City Manager for the City of Vancouver Sandra Singh.
The board’s statement says it wants to close the encampment because the “ongoing non-compliance with required guidelines since the restoration of the Designated Area in April continues to pose health and safety risks and are putting unsustainable pressure on Park Board resources.”
It also says as the weather gets colder, concerns for the health and safety of those sheltering outdoors should be considered.
General Manager of the Vancouver park board Steve Jackson says it’s important for the park to be “returned to the community for regular park use.”
“There are over 6,000 residents within a ten-minute walk of Crab Park,” he said.
The board also says they have made more than one housing offer to the remaining residents of the park, but they were met with disagreement.
“As of Oct. 19, we have six intended users and one co-occupant left in the designated area. Five of the seven people remaining have been offered housing and have refused those offers, with one person having refused three offers,” said Singh.
“Any designated area occupant who decides to not accept housing or shelter will still be allowed to shelter overnight in Crab Park. They just won’t be allowed to keep their structures up during the day.”
Sacha Christiano, a resident at Crab Park told the media that he has not received any housing offers, and he would have considered them depending on what the housing offer would be.
“They told us that they offered somebody a very nice place with its own bathroom in a city-owned building, and that person rejected it. They didn’t then go to the next tent and offer to the next person,” he said.
Kerry Bamberger, another resident, tells CityNews that the only thing she can do is to let people the park board’s claim “isn’t a reality.”
“We are open to any form of assistance or ideas that anyone can possibly come up with… We’ve never refused help that’s valid. We’re not dumb,” she said.
She also says that the board doesn’t properly communicate with the residents.
“They don’t consult us with anything. They hand out violation notices.”
The Crab Park encampment began in 2021, remaining in place in 2022 when a B.C. Supreme Court judge set aside eviction notices, partially because the city didn’t have enough indoor shelter spaces to accommodate those living at the camp.
Bamberger says ever since the ruling of the court, the city was expected to work with the residents, but she claims that work has only been to protect the city’s public image.
“Prime example: when we requested washrooms to be closer to us they brought in this brand new bright and shiny porta potty. Great, and they took pictures of it, and the very next day they took that one away and they brought in the worst possible porta potties you could possibly think of.”
Singh says the board understands that this is a serious matter for residents of the encampment, and the city is working with BC Housing and other public community partners to make shelters available.
The city had previously forced people out of the encampment in March to conduct cleanup on the sites, and residents were allowed to return to the designated area at Crab Park in April.
The cleanup crew removed more than 90,000 kilograms of material, 20 propane tanks and six generators during the operation.
-With files from The Canadian Press.