As Vancouver tent city expands, some neighbours voice support for campers' demands

As the tent city at Strathcona Park expands, someneighbours are voicing support fora new list of demands the campers have issued to thecity, as well as the provincial and federal governments, includingpermanent housing for all.

Inthree weeks, almost 150 tents have popped up at the camp, which camperscallKT, short forKennedy Trudeau referencing the mayor of Vancouver and the prime minister of Canada.

The campers moved to StrathconaPark after Vancouver police enforced an injunction granted by the B.C. Supreme Courtagainst another camp on Port of Vancouver land next to Crab Park.

Their list of demands, outlinedin a news release, includes "permanent housing for all, an end to the cycle of displacement,and repatriation of unceded Indigenous land."

The new camp takes up about aquarter of the parkin East Vancouver andedges on Cottonwood Community Garden,which neighbours have been building for almost 30 years.

About 95 per cent of the gardeners support the new camp, according to garden president, Beth McLaren.

"I mean, what they're asking for does not seem unreasonable to me," McLaren said fromthe garden.

"Some kind of permanent location,they want to go back to both parking lots in CrabPark and are asking forthings like water and toilets and the basics."

McLaren says she shared some of the gardeners' needs includingaccess to a wood chip pile and a clear entrance point to their garden in a recent meeting with camp organizer Chrissy Brett.

Gardeners have provided campers with a water hook-up, wood chips for the camp'sfire, and herbs from the gardens.

'They seem well organized'

But not all neighbours are in favour of the camp.

TheoLamb, executive director of theStrathcona BIA, toldCBC's Early Edition she is worried about crime and even violence that the camp could bring.

However, McLaren said there was alreadycrime includingbreak-ins, fires and open drug use in the gardens before the campers arrived.

"The way they've set up, it's clean,they seem very well organized," said neighbour William Azaroff, who alsoleads a non-profit housing group called Brightside Community Homes Foundation.

Azaroff said he attended a free barbecue the campers put on for the neighbours last weekend, where theyheld information sessions abouttheir intentions namelythat they want tofind a new permanent home.

"If you told me a year from now that camp was double the size and fully entrenched and not going anywhere,I'm not sure that's a good outcome for anyone and it's not what they want," Azaroff said.

Campers still trying to get housing

In late April,B.C.enacteda public safety order to move homeless people living in encampments into hotels in Vancouver and Victoria during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The provinceidentified686 hotel and community centre spaces in Vancouver to house the city's homeless until more permanent housing is made available.

But not everyone made it into those spaces. One of those is James, who didn't want his last name used since he is still trying to find housing.

He has cancer andis a veteran.

"It's been a really rough go,I've been homeless now for three years," he said from the camp, where he now lives.

He said he has been on the B.C. Housing list for 10 years and looks for housing every day.

The provincial government has saidthere is not enough affordable housing stock available.

Shane Simpson, minister of social development and poverty reduction,said in a statement that the province is askingthe federal government"to step up and contribute capital dollars for acquisitions, modular housing and other long-term solutions."

Advocatesays tent citymore than housing

Advocates like Anna Cooper of Pivot Legal Society, say tent cities offer people asense of community they may not feel elsewhere.

She saidliving on the street in doorways or under bridges, for example is not safe, while single-room occupancy hotels (SROs)sometimescome with violence, unsafe drinking water and bugs.

Cooper addedthat people living in SROs have not been allowed visitors due to COVID-19, making itchallenging for drug users to safely inject withsomeone watching over them.

"Some people, as long as they're forced to live outside, will feel safest in a tent city community," Cooper said.

To hear more from Strathcona residents, advocates, and people living in the encampment, click here.