‘Where do I go?’: Unhoused people in Vancouver’s CRAB Park say indoor spaces unsafe, inadequate

Even as snow weighs down the roofs of their tents in Vancouver’s CRAB Park, some people who have been living there say it’s a better and safer option than the alternatives.

Shane Bailey has been staying in the park since August. Given the sky-high rates for market rentals, the long waiting lists for permanent housing, his past experiences in shelters, and the conditions former campers report in SROs, Bailey says the park is the best option out there for him right now.

“These are my friends. We all live together and we all work together. We do what we’ve got to do,” he says.

“We’re like a family here. I feel safe.”

The Vancouver Park Board is seeking a court injunction to evict the campers. Along with others, Bailey is anxiously waiting to see if it will be granted, which would enable the police to come and clear out the people who have been sheltering there, along with all of their belongings. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

“I’m scared of that. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Bailey says.

“It took me a week to move my stuff here. It’s gonna take me a week to move it away, right? I can’t just do it in 12 hours or 24 hours. And where do I go?”

Prior to finding the encampment in the park, Bailey was staying at a downtown shelter that opened up earlier this year as part of a strategy by the city and the province to “decamp” Strathcona Park where hundreds of people experiencing homelessness had been living for nearly a year.

After waiting days for a bed at that shelter, Bailey says he left after a week because everything he had was stolen from him.

“My whole life, I was carrying around in a couple carts,” he explains.

“I got so tired of being stolen from that I left. I paid somebody to take care of my stuff, and I just went for a walk one day. I ended up walking down Waterfront Road and found CRAB Park. I don’t want to go to any shelter. I’ve rebuilt what I’ve lost. That’s taken quite a while, and I don’t want to lose it again.”

No decrease in number of unhoused people despite hundreds of new spaces

Since March of 2021, the city has added 617 units of supportive housing, and 120 emergency shelter spaces.

“Despite the significant investments in new space creation (supportive housing and shelter), there does not appear to be a decrease in the need for housing, shelter, and supports for individuals experiencing homelessness,” says a memo from Vancouver city staff to council from November.

One of the new supportive housing options is at the Patricia Hotel on East Hastings Street which was purchased by the province and is operated by the non-profit Atira Property Management.

Speaking to CityNews Wednesday during the deep freeze that began on Christmas Eve, residents said their rooms were frigid and heat was inadequate and inconsistent.

“What’s the difference between this and living on the street? It’s not much warmer I don’t think. Sometimes it’s colder in here than it is outside,” said a resident named Dale who previously lived at Strathcona Park.

A worker at ATIRA said the hotel boiler failed on Boxing Day and was fixed hours later, and that issues were ongoing because some residents broke their radiators when trying to make adjustments. With below-freezing temperatures and a cold weather warning in place until Jan. 3, residents say even when the heat works it is still not enough to keep them warm.

The heat was only one issue residents said they were struggling with. The elevator has been broken since Dec. 22, making it difficult and sometimes painful for residents with mobility issues to get to and from their rooms.

When announcing the purchase of the hotel, BC Housing described the supports and services that would be available to residents.

“The building will be managed by an experienced non-profit housing operator who will be on site 24/7 to manage the building and provide support services to the residents. Daily meals, access to life-skills training, employment assistance and counselling, physical and mental health resources, and access to addiction recovery services, will be available to residents,” said the statement from BC Housing.

But that isn’t the case, according to one resident who also works at the building.

“I mean, there’s a lunch program but most of the time I wouldn’t consider it edible and apparently is making people sick. The water is absolutely not potable at all,” says the woman who CityNews has agreed not to name.

“There’s no security here. anybody can pretty much follow somebody in here. It’s like really bad. People that are barred from the building get in here all the time.”

Bailey says he’s heard about issues like this at a number of SROs in the city where people who used to live in encampments have moved.

“A lot of them are like pretty rundown. You get the little teeny room for a very expensive price. And they’ve got cockroaches and bad toilets and bad sinks and bad water. Some of the places you can’t even drink the water because it’s bad, makes you sick. And then there’s all the things that are happening around those places too, right?”

This year, there have been at least five people killed in these buildings. There have been 18 homicides in the city in 2021.

Concerns over safety aren’t the only thing discouraging people like Bailey from pursuing these supportive housing options. Strict rules and the lack of storage and space are all issues.

“Running water, a place to cook your food, a place store your stuff, a room big enough to be able to put your stuff in,” that’s what Bailey says he wants.

“You’ve got to be able to socialize. You’ve got to be able to go visit somebody, have a guest over. Everybody’s different and everybody’s got different types of needs and different types of stuff. Some of them, you can’t even bring anybody over past a certain time. You’re not allowed to bring your stuff into the living quarters. Some of them you’re not allowed to bring a bicycle into. I’ve actually seen some of the modular places recently that they won’t allow them to bring their stuff inside. So they’ve got carts of all their personal belongings outside under tarps, ready to get stolen. That’s kind of harsh.” 

BC Housing working with city, non-profits on ‘appropriate indoor spaces’

Betty Lepps is BC Housing’s regional director of shelters and supportive housing. She estimates about 15 people remain in CRAB Park, and says 37 people have moved to indoor housing since Dec. 9. She says finding housing that works for each person is the priority. She says the effort to find indoor spaces for people currently involves non-profits, outreach teams, BC Housing, the City of Vancouver, and the Vancouver Park Board.

“We go case by case and have those conversations with those that want to have the conversations with us on a daily basis,” she says.

“There’s a whole housing continuum that someone can move to depending on their needs … We’re very confident that we will have the appropriate indoor spaces for everyone that’s living in the park.”

Still, she says there are people who are choosing to remain in the park.

“Some people are not choosing to accept the offers that are there, even though they’re different offers, or multiple offers that may suit what their needs are. But I think everybody has their different stories on why that is,” Lepps says.

“Each of them have different stories, each of them have a different case and they may not want to go to one place because of an incident that happened or their own trauma in the background or racism. All of those things are causes for people to be at risk of homelessness or homeless.”

The City of Vancouver cancelled the 2021 and 2022 homeless counts due to the pandemic. Although advocates have long said the annual count falls short of capturing the true scale of homelessness, the cancellations mean there is even less information about how many people are currently unhoused in the city. The last count was in March of 2020, just before the pandemic was declared. It found 2,095 residents in Vancouver who were experiencing homelessness. Of those, 547 were “living unsheltered on the street.”

“Specifically, the upward trend on access to Homelessness Services by people needing support suggests that the rate of homelessness remains the same or perhaps may have even increased.”