No eviction as court rules in favour of Vancouver’s CRAB Park residents

Unhoused people living in Vancouver’s CRAB Park are allowed to stay where they are — for now — after the BC Supreme Court set aside eviction orders from the Park Board.

Residents described the decision as a profound relief., and advocates hope it establishes a significant precedent.

“It’s a pretty amazing day. We took on the system and we won,” says resident Clint Randen. “It’s a wonderful thing, it’s a good thing.”

We can stay! A BC Court has ruled that the Park Board must stop eviction efforts against CRAB Park Tent community.

This is a huge win and a blow to the inhuman policies of @ParkBoard, @CityofVancouver and @Dave_Eby.

Press conference tomorrow at 11am at CRAB Park.#Vancouver

— No Eviction at CRAB Park (@crabencampment) January 13, 2022

The decision itself is twofold. First, it denies an injunction that would allow the park board to evict residents. Second, it sets aside two orders that prohibit sheltering in the park.

The decision was described as “monumental” by advocate Fiona York.

“These types of eviction attempts happen in cities all across Canada, they happen all the time,” she said citing examples from Prince George, Montreal, and Toronto.

“This is a very common thing where people who are homeless, find a place to shelter and find community, find a place that’s safer for them, and then very often, there’s a very violent eviction that’s enforced by police.”

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The CRAB park encampment has seen several evictions impacting dozens of people since 2020, when many people moved into the park on the waterfront area after the tent city at Oppenheimer Park was dismantled and residents were evicted by injunction. One of the factors the court considered in its decision was the history of encampments in parks on and near the Downtown Eastside.

“The experience of the past two years suggests there is a substantial risk that granting an injunction now will simply move the encampment to another neighbourhood in the city, which would not be in the public interest,” the ruling reads. The court also found that there was no evidence of any threat to public health or safety, and that asking people to only camp overnight and to pack up every morning was an undue hardship.

Andrew Hirschpold used to live in the encampment at Strathcona Park, but has since moved to a room in a hotel purchased by the province. He says he is a frequent visitor to CRAB Park, where many are former residents of the encampment in Strathcona.

“I yelled in my room. I said ‘Yes!” he says, adding he felt “glee” when he learned of the decision.

“I feel like I can’t grasp the whole thing completely but one thing it says is we don’t have to fear necessarily tomorrow that these things are going to be taken from us. It means for us that someone’s listening.”

York said a key issue raised in the decision was that of “suitable housing,” describing how the indoor options presented as alternatives to the encampment have not necessarily been safe, or adequate.

“People have been allowed to tell their stories and talk about what suitable space means to them, what housing means to them what community, or safer space, or shelter means to them. That’s been really important, and that’s a really big takeaway from this decision,” she said.

Hirschpold spoke about the limitations of the available options, both the emergency shelters he stayed in before living in a tent, and the room at a Holiday Inn he eventually moved into.

“I left the shelter systems for this. It’s not necessarily safe. that’s a sad thing to say, but that’s true,” he said. “I don’t think my place is totally adequate. It’s only temporary, I don’t know where I’m going after March.”

He said he wants people to understand that the narrative that some people simply “choose” to stay in the park doesn’t tell the full story.

“I want to just emphasize that choice, when you’re in this position — it isn’t really a choice so much,” he said. “Not everybody is housed well, and the majority of these places you wouldn’t want to step into.”

David Hudson has a similar story.

“The housing that I got after Strathcona Park last year, I eat more food and better food here than I did in my stay in that housing. And that is just absurd,” he said.

“The housing wasn’t really accessible to me either. It was very difficult to get on the list to get housed at all. And when I did finally gain housing, I was not allowed to bring very much stuff into housing at all either. Being severely limited on personal possessions is not a good thing. I was allowed one bag and one bin. How can you keep your life in a backpack and a bin? It was about a 10 foot by 15 foot room with a sink in it, bunk beds and a locker. There was shared bathroom for showers and using the restroom. And that’s it.”

Park Board ‘evaluating all the options’

Residents and advocates are now calling on the board, the city, and the province to not file an appeal, and instead work with those living in the park to find suitable housing that works for them.

Vancouver Park Board general manager Donnie Rosa says an appeal is not off the table, but it’s not an ideal course of action.

““It’s always one of the options, for sure. But I want to add, I would rather work with people, to successfully move people into indoor spaces where they can be supported,” they said.

“I’m evaluating all the options. The real truth here is we want to help people get indoors. It’s not about wanting to evict them from a park.I guess we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves a little bit more to figure out why it is the folks in the park who’ve been offered these indoor spaces, aren’t finding them suitable.”