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The Right to Housing During the Pandemic End the Criminalization of Vancouver's Homeless! In the early hours of June 16 Vancouver Police enforced the court injunction, arresting 46 people who refused to leave and charging them with civil contempt. Police seized their tents and possessions. More than 100 campers, many of whom are Indigenous people and many who have serious health issues, were forced to relocate everything for the third time in less than two months. The camp has now been re-established at Strathcona Park in East Vancouver. Campers told CBC News they were given no direction from police or other officials as to where they were expected to go next. One stated "We've got nowhere to go, so we'll find a place to go and go there. We're homeless but we're not helpless." At the camp people are able to look after one another, have organized food services and medical support, and are safer than in some of the shelters and other temporary housing in which people may be isolated and have to live in unsanitary conditions. Those who are still living in camps are those for whom no adequate housing has been provided. On the day of the eviction, CBC interviewed Elizabeth Ramsden, a nurse working in the community, about what had happened. She said "This is, I think, abhorrent. I'm speechless that, during a pandemic, this is the response that people want to demonstrate. We have medics [here], we have food services around the clock, and you want to tear that down with no warning, no housing, no plan?" She explained that she herself had left her job to come and provide health care to the people at the camp "because people need health care. It's really important for people to have outreach and no one is outreaching here because it's been determined to be a dangerous space. This is a community organized space." She also made the point that there was no warning before the early-morning raid and no support on site to help people with finding a place to live. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) issued a statement the same day denouncing the police action. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president, said the police raid "created a dangerous situation. During a pandemic in which the province committed to preventing evictions, the VPD (Vancouver Police Department) seized this opportunity to evict some of the most vulnerable residents of the Downtown Eastside, many of whom are survivors of ongoing Indigenous genocide. Residents were given a sheet of paper with a few phone numbers to call for housing, but the outstanding issue is that we understand no housing is available at this time. Where are they supposed to go?"
Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart is calling on the federal government to "step up" and support plans already in place to build housing for the homeless and under-housed. "The only way to end homelessness is by building housing, not evicting homeless residents without a plan for where they go next. If Ottawa came to the table, we could drastically increase the amount of housing we're able to provide." A meeting between Stewart, BC Housing Minister Selina Robinson and federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen has been scheduled for the week of June 22. The housing crisis in BC predates the pandemic. The April 9 letter from four BC organizations that advocate on behalf of people who are homeless outlines concrete measures that must be taken to provide housing in these conditions.[1] Governments at all levels, social agencies and the police forces are all acutely aware of the increased danger to the homeless and the communities because of the conditions that foster the rapid spread of the virus, not to mention other consequences of the pandemic and the shutdown, including a massive increase in overdose deaths in BC in May. In the conditions where a crisis of homelessness and precarious living conditions is worsened by the pandemic one could expect every politician to agree that housing is a right. While the politicians point fingers and pass the buck working people like the nurse quoted above selflessly come forward to serve others. The block to progress is the economy controlled by narrow private interests with governments at all levels recognizing the claims of the rich, including developers and land speculators. A new pro-social direction of the economy is needed with working people as the decision-makers. Note1. see "Call for Immediate Action to House All Unhoused BC Residents." Workers' Forum, April 17, 2020.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
In spite of the
efforts of advocates for the homeless and people who are inadequately
housed, dozens of people in Vancouver continue to live in tent
encampments and continue to be under constant threat of eviction from
the authorities. On May 8 the largest of these, at Oppenheimer Park,
was cleared and those who did not receive housing set up a new camp on
Crab Park on property of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, a federal
body. On June 10, the Port Authority applied for an injunction to
remove the campers which was enforced on June 16, after the campers had
already tried to comply with the injunction by moving from the park to
a nearby parking lot.
Parks Board
Commissioner John Irwin told CBC Early Edition host Stephen Quinn that
"We're just moving people around when really they should be housed. We
have to grapple with the problem." He said that there are lots of empty
hotel rooms because of the COVID-19 crisis and the City has the power
to compel the hotels to provide more temporary housing but has not done
so. Shane Simpson, provincial minister of Social Development and
Poverty Reduction, told Early Edition that "Some don't want to move
into temporary housing." Fionna Yorke of the Carnegie Action Committee
explained that people often feel more secure in tent communities than
in shelters where they have to share washrooms, are not allowed to have
guests or live with their partners, can't have pets and are isolated.