Vancouver planning to escalate removal of some encampments, documents show

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Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim insisted Monday that the city will continue to use “empathetic approaches” to homeless people living in the East Hastings Street encampment, even though leaked documents indicate a more aggressive plan is in the works.

The documents, released by the activist group Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, indicate the city, with the Vancouver Police Department (VPD), would escalate its effort to clear the camp. “With VPD support, [engineering] crews will no longer disengage when tensions rise or protesters/advocates become too disruptive,” the documents say.

This was to be followed by an intense one-day or two-day sweep to get rid of the structures described as “high-risk” sites that are “primarily commercial and social activity, heightened criminal element and risk to staff.”

Roving, quick-response teams would then go through the blocks daily, maintaining enforcement and removing structures, in a phase that “may take several weeks to reset behaviour.”

The plan also talks about co-ordination with the city’s homeless outreach team, Vancouver Coastal Health, and BC Housing to link people with mental-health and housing services.

Community organizer Vince Tao said the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users received the leaked documents about a week after they were presented to city staff and contain several key points worth highlighting.

“Number one is that this eviction will be police-led, in the face of people’s resistance, of their survival on the street,” Mr. Tao said. “The city is using police violence to punish individuals, to remove them from their homes and to teach them a lesson that they do not belong here. ... Number two is that there is no place for these individuals to go.”

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He called for a moratorium on clearing the encampment until adequate housing is available.

The city’s communications department said there will be no comment on the leaked documents, but it did not dispute their validity. Mr. Sim said the plan was the work of staff, not an order from council.

VPD also did not comment except to say: “We continue to support City of Vancouver workers as they deploy throughout the encampment zone. We’ve been doing this for months.”

B.C. Premier David Eby, speaking at a separate news conference on housing, reiterated the province’s position that living in a camp on the street is untenable and unsafe.

“My message to people who are living in the camps: We have space in shelters right now. They’re much safer than the encampments,” he said.

The leaked plan has set off another round of debate about how to handle the Hastings camp and whether housing the province promised last week will be effective.

B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon announced the province would have 330 rooms or apartments ready by the end of June.

The province also issued a statement saying that more than 90 people had already accepted housing offers and moved, while another 70 among about 120 still on the street said they wanted housing.

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But critics said some of that housing, especially the old-style hotel rooms, is substandard.

Stuart Panko, a maintenance worker who has been homeless and living in the Hastings Street area since November, said the city offered him a few different units in single-room occupancy buildings recently, but they were so inadequate that he felt safer on the street.

He described one room as particularly dire and seemingly untouched since the previous tenant vacated.

“Usually, they will do a paint job and add a new sink, new door and change the locks and stuff like that,” he said. “I don’t think any of that was done. There was plywood over the door and you could tell there were bugs and stuff. I just said no, I couldn’t do it.”

Community advocate Kaylalya Raine said she has witnessed city workers and Vancouver police throwing people’s homes and belongings into the trash while barring access to lawyers, legal observers and other advocates.

She expressed skepticism of the province’s pledge that 330 temporary housing units would be available by June and said that, if true, it makes no sense to clear the encampment now.

“What do you hope to accomplish by displacing people now, knowing that they have nowhere to go – knowing that people will have to continue living outdoors, knowing that shelters are not a pipeline to housing, and that housing is not available right now?” she said.

The number of structures along East Hastings Street has been reduced to 74 from 180 since July, 2022, according to the province.

With a report from Justine Hunter