Tents set up outside Victoria City Hall on Sunday by a small group protesting the city’s handling of camping in parks were taken down after a visit from bylaw officers early Monday.
At its peak, the small encampment had eight structures and a dozen people.
City spokesperson Colleen Mycroft said bylaw officers attended around 7:30 a.m. Monday and removed six structures from the area. Three people with their packed belongings were sitting near the former campsite after the removal.
Encampment organizer Martin Girard said in a statement that there were no plans to return to the site. “We’ll start over with a fresh plan instead,” he said.
For close to a week, Girard had been advertising plans for an encampment at the Victoria courthouse grounds to protest city bylaws that restrict overnight sheltering in city parks.
On Sunday, about 60 people showed up to a 2 p.m. rally at Centennial Square, but few brought camping gear. At the courthouse, newly erected fencing was in place, and signs informed visitors that overnight sheltering was not allowed.
Girard later announced that he was changing the encampment location to the grassy area next to Victoria City Hall.
Half a dozen police officers who were at the scene for the anticipated march to the courthouse left when it became clear that it wouldn’t happen.
By 6 p.m., four tents were set up near the fenced-off sequoia tree in Centennial Square, which later expanded to eight structures.
After recent bylaw changes, only three Victoria parks with bathroom facilities remain available for those seeking overnight shelter outside.
Girard, who said he had previously been homeless for five years, said those parks — Oaklands, Pemberton and Gonzales — are too far from any services.
He said it’s difficult for seniors and those with disabilities to travel from those parks to downtown Victoria, where many social services are located.
“These people need somewhere to go,” Girard said. “If city council will not give these people somewhere to go, then we will come to their doorstep.”
Encampment supporter Natalya Symon said she’s seen too much vitriol toward homeless people in Victoria, including online posts mocking recent deaths in the street community.
Everyone deserves a place to live, and it takes just “one mistake, one financial slip” for someone to become homeless in Victoria, she said.
“I wish that people who aren’t in support of what we’re doing here, if they would just come down and talk,” she said. “Sit down and talk to them for five minutes. … I think it put things in perspective.
“For a lot of people [being homeless] wasn’t a choice.”
