Camping in Vancouver parks not a longterm solution to homelessness: advocate

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Vancouver Park Board’s move to allow people to sleep in the city’s green spaces temporarily isn’t a long term solution to homelessness, an advocate says less than a day after commissioners voted to amend a bylaw.

Jeremy Hunka with the Union Gospel Mission says while the change will provide some respite for people in need of a place to lay their head for a night, camping in a park when you have no where else to go is far from an answer to a growing issue.

“A park is not the best, or the safest, or the most dignified place for people to live or to be experiencing homelessness, and that’s really important to note,” he tells NEWS 1130, adding more needs to be done to help the city’s most vulnerable people.

Park Board commissioners considered the controversial bylaw change over two days and heard from at least 90 speakers. They voted to make changes to the Park Control Bylaw, allowing for temporary overnight sheltering in green spaces.

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Three sections of the bylaw that were at issue were the ones that banned people from entering parks at night, that prevented people from loitering overnight, and that make it illegal to erect a tent without permission.

Hunka says people need to understand the difficulties many face just trying to find shelter at night.

“Even at UGM, just one organization, over the past six weeks, we’ve had 150 occasions where we had to turn people away, and the vast majority of that is because we didn’t have space,” he explains. “So, it’s extremely hard for people to find places to sleep, places to be safe.”

He says typically this time of year, the shelter is quite empty. However, the influx of people the UGM is seeing each night in July is cause for concern, Hunka adds.

“It’s almost never full like this.”

Hunka would like to see permanent solutions, like housing and housing supports, adding anything else is a “stop-gap measure, especially when it comes to camping in parks.”

The Park Board heard from people both for and against amendments to the bylaw. The controversial topic has flagged concerns around safety and cleanliness in Vancouver’s green spaces.

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The bylaw amendment will allow people experiencing homelessness to set up a tent or other temporary shelter in parks at dusk, as long as they’re down by 7:00 a.m.

“It seemed like the bylaw, or the amendment, was an attempt to strike a balance and be reasonable, to some degree, to those who need the park because they don’t have a place to go, and those who maybe want to use the park as a park,” Hunka says.

“I question whether people who are experiencing homelessness would see it as realistic to pick up at 7:00 a.m. and then set up at dusk every day. People who are experiencing homelessness are there for many complicated reasons and they’re dealing with crisis, stacked upon crisis, stacked upon crisis.”

A 2009 B.C. Supreme Court decision ruled that homeless people have a constitutional right to erect temporary overnight shelters on public lands. It found that restricting people from doing so would be a Charter right violation, given the lack of adequate shelter capacity for those experiencing homelessness.

The Park Board’s move was an attempt to bring its bylaws in line with that ruling.