Dozens of police officers from three departments surrounded Saanich’s new tent city on Ravine Way Tuesday morning to enforce an order from the province to vacate.
Yellow police tape and police vehicles encircled the perimeter of the new encampment on the green space between Highway 17, Carey Road, Ravine Way and Vernon Avenue.
“The camp will be vacated today,” said Saanich police spokesman Sgt. Jereme Leslie. The police plan to erect fences.
Campers, with their belongings carried in a U-Haul truck, made an unsuccessful attempt to relocate to nearby Rudd Park in Saanich around noon but that was thwarted by police. A Saanich bylaw permits camping in 102 designated municipal parks but only between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m. Campers said they intend to return.
Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena, exercising both the Trespass Act and Transportation Act, asked the police Monday night to act as the province’s agents in enforcing the eviction, said Victoria lawyer John Heaney, who is representing several of the campers.
“I am certain that you recognize that the homeless must exist somewhere and, where no indoor alternatives exist, there is little choice for the residents of Namegans Nation but to seek out the greatest safety available to them,” wrote Heaney in a letter to the minister. “It is our view that a home is the constructive answer to the active homelessness found on the Lands.”
The campers are calling their campsite Namegans Nation.
Since 8 a.m., the 42 campers, who were living in 28 tents, have been slowly packing their belongings. Most are former residents of a five-month-long homeless camp in Regina Park. That camp was shut down fully by 2 p.m. on Friday, after Saanich police officers enforced a B.C. Supreme Court injunction, forcing about 115 campers to relocate.
Of the 115 campers, the province was only able to secure permanent housing for two occupants, some were eligible for rent supplements and a “handful of others were placed onto housing waitlists,” said Heaney in his letter.
“The dispersal of people from Regina Park to nothing is almost unprecedented since the time of the Victoria park encampment [on the Victoria courthouse property],” Heaney said in an interview.
At the Victoria tent city, from the fall of 2015 to August 2016, the province sought an injunction to evict the campers based on safety concerns, but B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson rejected the application, saying the homeless had no safer place to go. The province found housing for more than 100 people at the camp.
“This is the first time since that time in the CRD that we’ve had an example of the court saying it’s not sufficient concern to us that you have nowhere to go and you must leave,” said Heaney.
The campers arrived at Ravine Way on Friday. Because it’s provincial land, the encampment was exempt from a Saanich bylaw that only permits overnight camping.
On Sunday, the province posted trespass notices on trees and informed campers to stop overnight camping and remove all personal property from its land, warning a failure to do so could result in arrests. The province also notified campers that they are ordered to leave under the Transportation Act.
“The safety of campers is our first priority and, as a judge recently ruled, highway land is not a safe place for people to be camping,” says a statement from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
“In the interests of safety, police will be asking campers to vacate immediately. Provincial outreach staff will assist campers who need help moving and with housing needs assessments.”
Heaney argued that vulnerable people without homes are safer together, that the fire risk cited at Regina Park is now gone with the return of wet weather, and that if the province maintains campers are in danger sleeping in greenspace abutting a highway, then pedestrians on the adjacent sidewalks are at more risk.
The campers’ legal defence under Section 4.1 of the Trespass Act is that they have nowhere else to go and have a Section 7 Charter right “to shelter together outdoors all day on public lands for their safety when there is insufficient housing or shelter available to ensure they can have shelter indoors like the rest of our citizens,” said Heaney.
On Monday, the province offered a 25-bed shelter at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre from Oct. 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019 between 9 p.m. and 7:30 a.m..
Camp organizer Chrissy Brett said the shelter beds are not a not a long-term solution and there are not enough spaces. The province has vowed to open up more shelters in the near future.
In a text message to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Brett said the group plans to head to Goldstream Provincial Park and camp there for two weeks.
“I don’t understand the lack of willingness to have this encampment be here while they sit down and talk to people about the No. 1 issue that was acknowledged in the court two weeks ago — there aren’t vacancies and they don’t know what to do with 40, 75, 100 people who are difficult to house,” said Heaney.
The Victoria lawyer said despite efforts to provide more housing, “they don’t have space for them.”
“I don’t understand the impatience and unwillingness to have people live here securely while they talk to them about how to put a roof over their head,” said Heaney.
He asked the province to talk with the people who are homeless at the camp and explore housing options “that could be made readily available and thereby obviate the need for legal proceedings or further encampment.”
The courts are not the best way to resolve this matter, Heaney said in his letter to the transportation minister. The provincial government spent $3 million in clean-up costs ($800,000 of which was legal fees) for the Victoria camp, according to documents obtained by the Times Colonist last summer.
Camper Scott Taylor packed up his belongings from the Ravine Way camp on Monday. He said he felt safer and his belongings were more secure at the tent city than sleeping in different accommodations each night downtown.
Camper Blair Este said he and his wife have been told some people will move back to Rudd Park and he’s considering it.
That’s where campers moved when they were forced out of Regina Park. Neighbours at Rudd Park quickly complained that the sports field and playground used by many community associations was not an appropriate place for the campers. On-site washrooms were not open to the campers, who were forced to use a nearby convenience store and gas station. The campers said they were harassed overnight by residents.
