About 40 people, mostly drawn by the chance to sound off about people living in vehicles parked along Dallas Road, crammed Mayor Lisa Helps’ monthly community drop-in at Victoria City Hall on Tuesday.
Helps made it plain the monthly drop-in is not meant to deal with any one particular issue, though Dallas Road and the parked vans dominated the session.
She said afterward that she believes the discussion was helpful, even if produced no permanent solution. That, she said, would require something be done about the lack of affordable housing across Canada.
“Nobody in Canada should be living in a van or a tent in a park in the 21st century,” Helps told reporters. “We need solutions where people can actually afford to live in our cities.”
According to nearby residents, people are living in vans, RVs and campers parked along Dallas Road, dropping trash and making their toilet in the area.
A petition started last week demands the city enforce bylaws that forbid sleeping in any vehicle parked on city streets. By the time it was dropped off at city hall on Tuesday, it had 575 signatures.
Citizen complaints already have nudged city bylaw officials to promise new signs within weeks limiting parking to 3.5 hours.
At the drop-in Tuesday, Dallas Road homeowners were universal in their complaint that people living in parked vans, RVs and campers have monopolized a public space and created a nuisance.
Brian Lepine said the area draws all kinds of people: children on school outings, kite flyers, runners and dog walkers, and they are now being forced away.
“I understand how wonderful it must be, because we all love nature, to just go down to the most beautiful gem on Vancouver Island and just plunk yourself,” he said. “But we just can’t allow that, because it’s not fair to everyone.”
Van dwellers said their chosen way of living harms nobody, and many of them expressed insult when some speakers characterized them as poor or homeless.
“Living in a van doesn’t mean you are homeless,” said Amanda Mackenzie, 26. “It just means you want to live a minimal lifestyle.”
Mackenzie said she works 50 hours a week in a restaurant and is about to start classes at Camosun College. Living in a van is her choice at the moment.
“There just needs to be a bit more acceptance,” she said.
“Maybe people can just come and talk to me” or some of the others, she said, adding: “We are part of the James Bay community, whether people like it or not.”
Bruce Millar and his wife, Barbara Uniewski, said they have travelled all over North America in a camper van and nowhere have they encountered a city that allowed them to park and sleep along the streets.
Millar noted Victoria has nowhere for a camper to discharge grey water — dirty water from sinks, for example — except down the storm sewers, which he said is unacceptable.
Van dweller Tyler Kleppe, who has been on Vancouver Island since early September, said he can sympathize with homeowners.
But Kleppe takes exception to the notion people should be prohibited from sleeping in a vehicle parked on a street.
“I totally understand homeowners’ perspective that it shouldn’t be a permanent camping place,” he said. “But I don’t think it should be illegal to sleep in your vehicle, just maybe where.”
