DTES park still closed during record setting heatwave

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Where are the homeless supposed to go during a heat wave? It’s a question one advocate for those living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is asking.

Karen Ward is demanding Oppenheimer Park, in between East Cordova and Powell Streets be reopened as it has been sitting empty since a large tent encampment was cleared out in May, 2020. The next closest park is Maclean Park in Strathcona, more than 850 metres away.

“It’s been over a year, we haven’t had a park for the entire pandemic,” Ward says. “Now, we’ve got this incredible heat, and this is a heat desert, it’s so hot, and there’s no where to go.”

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood battles with an “urban heat island” effect, due to its disproportionate lack of accessible greenspaces and dense concentration of buildings and pavements.

She says she’s asked the city about re-opening, but she’s not getting any answers.

“It’s like they’re not in any hurry or anything at all,” she says. “And, I looked into it, and they said they were ‘consulting’ about it.”

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Ward says it’s an incredibly frustrating situation.

“They’ve got private security at night, they have a gate around the park; They’re withholding it from poor people,” says Ward. “All because they don’t want to deal with us… They’ve done nothing to mitigate the loss of our public space, and they’ve done nothing to acknowledge that, and I’m furious about that.”

She says many people were moved from the park into SRO accommodations when Oppenheimer was cleared out last year, however, she points out that many of the suites are ill-equipped to deal with the soaring temperatures.

In addition, she says the park was a community spot where people could gather together.

“That’s our history, that’s our meeting place, we have memorials there,” she says. “It’s heart-breaking, and it’s infuriating.”

The City of Vancouver tells NEWS 1130 the park is not open this weekend, however, it says staff are “working hard to re-open it imminently.”

However, it says this is not related to the ongoing heat wave as the original time-line for the park called for it to be re-opened in Mid-June.