Vancouver to let CRAB Park residents shelter on site during cleanup

Vancouver is laying out its plan to clean up CRAB Park, saying it will start its work in two weeks with the goal of wrapping up by the end of March.

The city says the roughly three-dozen, full-time residents who currently live there will get temporary full-time space in the park, along with storage and housing options.

The planned cleanup was sparked by concerns over health and safety in CRAB park, which is Vancouver’s only 24/7 legal encampment.

“We definitely wanted to ensure that people currently sheltering in the designated area would be able to remain in the park. This is not a decampment. This is an attempt to clean up this area and ensure that the area is bylaw compliant for safety and health reasons moving forward,” explained Sandra Singh, deputy city manager.

“Our assessment as well is that when it’s unsafe for staff to be in an environment and work in an environment like that, it’s also inappropriate for other people to be in that environment. And those same conditions that we were concerned about for staff, we were also concerned about for people sheltering in the daytime area.”

The cleanup is broken down into three phases: relocating residents, performing the cleanup and repairs, and bring residents back to the cleaned up area.

“We are going to have some trucks, we’ll have bins. We’ll probably likely have backhoe type of piece of equipment. Either vans or cube vans that will be taking away some of the items such as propane tanks, so that we can safely dispose of it,” said Amit Ghanda, director of parks for the City of Vancouver.

Singh says residents will be allowed to return to the park throughout the work but notes they will have to comply with rules around what can and can’t be brought in.

The city says it is aiming to have shelter and everyone out of the park by the fall. In the short-term, The goal is for residents to return to their original spot by April 1.

“We recognize that uncertainty creates stress for people and that, no matter how we approach this work, it will create stress for folks that are sheltering in the encampment, and we want to do our best to mitigate that,” Singh said.

Rangers and city staff have been in the park asking residents to leave at various times over the last few months.

Some advocates have raised concerns about what they previously described as a lack of information around what’s being planned. Fiona York, who advocates for those living in CRAB Park, said last month there were “a lot of grey areas,” adding, “the timeline is also very, very short.”

Michelle Gagnon-Creeley, a volunteer at CRAB Park, says she wants to see more concrete evidence of the city’s plans.

“They’re saying that they’re being relocated. Ok, where? Can we see it on a map? Can we see a delineation of where you’re hoping to relocate people? I have not seen that in this plan,” Gagnon-Creeley said.

In December, residents of CRAB Park launched a human rights complaint, claiming the City of Vancouver and Park Board were refusing adequate services to some members of the camp.

They alleged the city and Park Board were discriminating against them on the basis of Indigenous identity, race, disability, mental ability, and more.

Larry Cocksedge, a resident of CRAB Park, says he remains apprehensive about the proposed cleanup.

“Our biggest fear is that they’re just going to come in, steamroll everybody’s possessions, belongings, everything that they own…excavate it all, fence it up and then say, ‘Sorry guys, you’re out of here,'” he said.

–With files from Mike Lloyd, Kate Walker and Michael Williams