CRAB Park homeless campers being evicted Friday
Posted July 9, 2021 6:34 am.
Last Updated July 9, 2021 6:39 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – CRAB Park in Vancouver is about to become the latest flashpoint as the city and region try to find a solution to help the homeless.
Advocates say the Vancouver Park Board has ordered dozens of tenters to clear out by Friday morning, saying if they don’t, they’ll be evicted.
Vancouver police confirm they will be on site to assist and “present to keep the peace.” The VPD notes the park board is the lead on this.
According to advocates, those without a roof over their head have been abiding by a bylaw that allows for overnight camping, but that park board staff have, since 2019, taken an “increasingly taken a hostile, confrontational approach to prevent homeless encampments in parks.”
They add officials have done so through a number of actions, “including withholding resources and access, locking the gates, anti-homeless park architecture, fencing off public spaces and harassing and intimidating homeless residents with conflicting and inconsistent directives.”
According to an email from advocates, rangers gave homeless encampment residents word on July 6 and 7 that they needed to move their tents “so that ‘lawn maintenance’ could take place.” However, the group says there was “no mention,” at that time, that a permanent eviction would be taking place.
Meanwhile, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs says it’s standing in solidarity with the campers who don’t want to leave CRAB Park.
The UBCIC says in a statement the “decampment and removal of campers, including Indigenous people, is in direct opposition to statements made by the Parks Board, City’s commitment to reconciliation, and B.C.’s commitment to the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.”
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The Indigenous group calls attempts to enforce orders and “forcibly remove a First Nations Elder from Haida Gwaii” continued “attempts of oppression.”
“CRAB Park serves as a safe haven for those who are disproportionately impacted by homelessness and impoverishment linked to the legacy of colonization,” the UBCIC says.
This is not the first time there’s been conflict over the homeless living at CRAB Park. Last year, the park board cleared out the space of many of the same people who had moved there from Oppenheimer Park, after a tent city in that greenspace was removed. Many of the people living at CRAB Park in 2020 left to Strathcona Park, where the homeless are once again being displaced.
Advocates have called previous evictions, including from Oppenheimer, CRAB Park, Strathcona, and Raymur Street, “dehumanizing” and “traumatic.”
