CRAB Park residents adjust to designated cleaned-up zone with daily park ranger visits

It’s been over two months since the city cleaned up Vancouver’s only legally sanctioned encampment, which is located in CRAB Park.

The encampment area has been downsized since the cleanup. There are now only 11 residents living there, down from 16. Advocates and residents of the park say one of their main concerns is the number of park rangers and police officers that visit here every morning compared to the amount of people living here, with the contrast creating what they are calling an “invasive environment.”

“People feel very, very invaded, very uncomfortable, very targeted. They feel like they’re being punished, or there’s kind of a revenge for the fact that they have a right to be here,” said advocate Fiona York.

“Up to fourteen rangers, four cops will come in. Just really invasive, really making people uncomfortable, making it clear that they’re not really wanted.”

Sacha Christiano is one of the eleven people currently living in the park. He says one of his biggest concerns is trying to make sure his belongings don’t get confiscated each morning while he’s at work.

“Like the whole musical chairs game,” Christiano said.

“If you’re not here, take your spot, and nobody gets that spot. How many homeless people are there? And how many people live here?”

Director of parks Amit Gandha says the city is trying to make sure the site does not go back to the state it was in before, when it was deemed unsafe and unsanitary.

“We have park operations staff that go in there as well to do general cleanup. We have sanitation services that will go into that park with cleanup, we’ve got our park rangers, and they can be three to six rangers, potentially going to the park and then there’s VPD,” said Gandha.

“What the rangers have been doing on a daily basis, is trying to uphold the GM notice piece, which is really trying to get the compliance to make sure we stay at that place where the site stays and remains safe for them.”

Four of the original 16 tenants have since been housed. The city says the end goal is for the encampment to no longer exist and to find everyone their own home indoors.