Tent cities that have sprung up in Victoria, Saanich and Nanaimo and on the Lower Mainland in recent years all have something in common: the guiding hand of Surrey-based Alliance Against Displacement.
The roots of DisconTent City in Nanaimo illustrate the role of the Alliance, an advocacy organization formed in 2013 that describes itself as “anti-capitalist, anti-colonial.”
In March, a group of people started to live in tents on the lawn of Nanaimo City Hall to call attention to homelessness. They were ordered to leave and they eventually complied.
Listen Chen, an organizer with Alliance Against Displacement, recalled what happened next.
“We saw that from the mainland and got in touch with some of the people on the ground in Nanaimo and we said: ‘These are our experiences organizing tent cities — would you like some help? Are you interested in starting a more long-term tent city that is not just protesting conditions, but also offering a stable, safe place for homeless people to find community?’
“They said: ‘Yes, that sounds good.’
“So we went over and shared our experiences organizing tent cities in Vancouver, as well as Victoria and Maple Ridge, and helped articulate a statement that could be used as a political declaration, that could be used when we called the press conference to start up the tent city.”
The Alliance, which does not have charitable status, raises funds for its campaigns, in part through its website. It has had campaigns in Abbotsford, Burnaby, Maple Ridge, Surrey, Vancouver as well as on Vancouver Island, where it has defended tent cities and fought evictions because of demolition plans.
Along with DisconTent City, the Alliance’s work has included Camp Namegans, which began in Saanich’s Regina Park for five months and is now at Goldstream Provincial Park, and Anita Place in Maple Ridge.
It helps to build structures at tent cities and provides supplies such as tarps, tents and water. For example, it helped to build the kitchen at DisconTent City.
Political work includes assisting in convening a camp council of elected representatives, chairing meetings, helping with news releases and keeping tent-city residents up to date with what is happening elsewhere, Chen said.
The group also helped to organize rallies in Nanaimo.
The Nanaimo tent city has become the largest in B.C., with an estimated 300 residents. A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered it closed by Oct. 12 because of fire-safety concerns and reports of criminal behaviour.
In a court affidavit, as part of efforts to block the dismantling of DisconTent City, key Nanaimo organizer Mercedes Courtoreille acknowledged the influence of other tent cities.
“I was in contact with other tent cities across the province, speaking to them about what it took to develop tent city and learning from their experience,” she said in the affidavit.
In recent years, tent cities have increasingly become part of our urban landscape.
Some encampments are in high-profile locations, chosen to make a statement and to keep their issues in the public eye. Others are smaller, hidden in wooded or isolated areas, where campers are keen to keep out of sight.
After the province gave Camp Namegans tent city two weeks to leave Goldstream Provincial Park, dating from their arrival on Sept. 18 — which means they must leave by Tuesday — a protest rally held at Goldstream on Saturday was announced through an Alliance Against Displacement press release.
Chen, the Alliance organizer, said much of the group’s work is political. Any time an impromptu, informal encampment arises, “if there is no political organization, then bylaw officers and the police come and it is extremely easy for them to dismantle it.”
The difference between impromptu encampments and the tent cities the Alliance works with is that the latter have “some kind of political cohesion,” which helps to defend against efforts to disperse homeless people when they gather, she said.
Some people believe homelessness is a crisis of the individual, but Chen said it is really a systemic problem, caused by lack of government funding for dignified social housing.
Amber McGrath, one of the Nanaimo tent city organizers, belongs to the Alliance, which she said has been “super supportive.”
The network includes housing activist Ivan Drury, who has made several trips from the Lower Mainland to Victoria, Saanich and Nanaimo to support tent cities.
That included arriving at the now-disbanded tent city next to Victoria’s courthouse in February 2016 with a busload of 45 homeless people to speak out against provincial instructions to move out.
Drury said at the time: “It’s not just Victoria where this problem exists. It’s everywhere in this province. … [Tent cities] are created by poverty. But they are also places where the leadership of homeless people is coming together to show the way out of this crisis.”
The only solution to homelessness is permanent housing for low-income people, he said.
In May, Drury was in Nanaimo leading a rally of about 80 campers, telling them the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives them the right to “hold this site as a matter of safety and dignity for homeless people who are here.”
He led chants of: “Homes not shelters. Homes not jails. Homes not displacement. Homes not police. Homes not hate.”
On Sept. 13, when Regina Park campers were moved out and made their way to Ravine Way, Drury was on hand, helping to direct the new encampment’s setup.
On that day, campers leaving the park gathered first for a press conference with supporters at a nearby playground.
They included Anna Cooper, a lawyer with the Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, who has advocated for Anita Place tent city in Maple Ridge; Noah Ross, lawyer for DisconTent City; and Ashley Mollison, an Alliance member, who also spoke at a rally for the Namegans campers at Goldstream on Saturday.
Chen was at Ravine Way, too.
She said the Alliance will pay for travel so that people in tent cities can meet with each other.
“We also try to foster those relationships so that people feel less alone and realize that they are part of a broader movement and a broader injustice, which is much less isolating.”
