Victoria city council agreed Thursday on a plan to end around-the-clock camping in city parks by March 31, providing that people currently living outside are offered housing or shelter space before the deadline.
Councillors endorsed a series of proposals from Mayor Lisa Helps and Coun. Jeremy Loveday aimed at moving people indoors as soon as possible.
“This is a very bold approach to say we’re going to work as hard as we can with everyone involved to offer everybody who’s currently outside a space inside — a space that will either be permanent housing or will lead to permanent housing,” Helps said.
Council eased a prohibition on around-the-clock camping earlier this year when the COVID‑19 outbreak forced homeless shelters to close or reduce the number of beds to meet physical-distancing rules.
The exact number of people camping in city parks remains unclear.
Council was told that the most recent count found 225 structures in parks across the city. But bylaw staff said that a number of those structures were found to be unoccupied, so the actual number of people without homes could be fewer than 200.
As part of the approved plan, staff will draft park bylaw amendments to end 24/7 camping at the end of March, but council will only vote on final adoption once it’s clear people have been offered housing or shelter space.
Coun. Geoff Young described that “as a pretty big escape clause” and said the plan will put “far too great a burden” on bylaw staff by requiring them to differentiate between those people “currently” living in the parks and those who arrive later. “And to suggest that there won’t be new people with new needs created, who will also be arriving in our parks, is inaccurate,” he said.
Coun. Sharmarke Dubow supported efforts to get people indoors, but voted against setting a deadline until he sees that everyone has a safe place with the supports they need.
Coun. Ben Isitt said he shared Dubow’s concerns, but he expressed hope that “setting a timeline can serve as a catalyst to create indoor housing options. I think that’s an approach worth taking.”
The plan’s various strategies for finding housing include:
• Directing city staff to work with private landowners or use city land to build temporary clusters of tiny homes with no more than 30 units, beginning with a pilot project next year.
• Pressing the provincial government to begin building modular housing on two recently purchased sites on Yates Street and Meares Street.
• Urging the province to open a “small portion” of Oak Bay Lodge for people 55 and older who have no home.
In a related move, council voted to ban camping in Centennial Square until March 31, at which point overnight camping will be permitted.
Council will revisit the issue in early March.
Helps said the move was “largely symbolic,” since there is no one currently camping in Centennial Square.
“But I think the need for the motion is to share with our hard-working small businesses, who are facing their own survival, that we are responsive to their needs,” she said.
“Passing this motion, doesn’t mean that we think that people who are homeless commit crimes. I don’t think that. But it does mean that when there’s a concentration of people who are vulnerable that others come and prey upon them.”
A previous encampment in Centennial Square was shut down due to entrenched criminal activity.
Jeff Bray, executive director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, expressed disappointment that council did not extend the camping ban to the entire downtown core.
“That being said, we are happy that Centennial Square will have no camping of any kind at least until March 31,” he said. “It was the largest encampments and obviously there were challenges with it, so we’re certainly happy with that. We would have been happier if it was the downtown core in totality.”
In a meeting dominated by sheltering issues, council agreed to use $100,000 in federal and provincial COVID-19 relief money to set up an emergency social services fund. Non-profit agencies will apply for one-time grants to provide mobile hygiene services, such as showers, to people sheltering in city parks.
Helps described the program as a nimble way to have non-profit agencies deliver needed mobile services over the next five months “until we meet our goal of people moving inside.”
Our Place Society is one of the agencies already delivering extensive services to people without homes. The agency announced Thursday that it’s erecting three large tents in its courtyard to keep people warm and dry as they line up for meals and other services, since COVID-19 protocols limit the number of people allowed inside at one time.
