Victoria’s Together Against Poverty Society plans to fight government efforts to evict the remaining campers from the lawn of the Victoria courthouse.
TAPS executive director Kelly Newhook said Tuesday that the government is ignoring the preliminary results of a homelessness count last month that found 254 people “sleeping rough” in the capital region.
By comparison, she said, the province announced the creation of 88 shelter and transition housing units on Feb. 5
“So right off the hop, we know that people don’t have places to go,” Newhook said. “That’s simple math, right?
“We do believe that people deserve a place to live and to have a home. We fundamentally believe that.
“And, in the absence of the government doing what we believe they are obligated to do, we think that people should be able to stay there, create community and have a home.”
The provincial government has applied to B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction to remove the remaining people from the tent city that sprang up last November on the courthouse lawn.
Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Tuesday that the application will be heard next week.
“It really is getting our ducks in order if we need it,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for it to be an urgent matter.”
Coleman said the number of homeless people at the site is “way down” since 60 people moved to the new spaces at Mount Edwards Court and the former youth custody centre in View Royal.
His ministry said Monday that about 30 to 40 people remained at the courthouse, including about 20 who planned to move to the jail.
Coleman has suggested that some of the remaining people are activists. He said the province has provided more housing or shelter spaces than there were people at the tent city.
“So the argument that they have nowhere else to go is gone, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
But Newhook said the province could be doing a lot more than “pouring money into temporary shelters.”
“Even the seasonal shelters, they’re all going to close in a month. Where are we at then?”
She said as the government has moved people out of the tent city, other people have moved in “because there’s more homeless people on the street, right?
“So they’re just not dealing with the problem as it actually presents itself.”
