Greater Victoria’s tent city of homeless people is ping-ponging around the region, while provincial and municipal officials try to keep up. Scrambling from one crisis to another, administrators, police, politicians and the courts are reacting without having an overarching plan. Meanwhile, those who live in the encampments uproot their fragile lives and add uncertainty to the misery that haunts their daily existence.
For five months, about 100 people camped in Regina Park in Saanich, until a judge ordered them out and the camp was shut down on Sept. 13. They briefly moved to Rudd Park, horrifying neighbours and daycare operators who use the park.
Then they took over a patch of provincial grass on Ravine Way, not far from the Saanich police headquarters. Learning from its tardy response to the former tent city beside the Victoria courthouse, the provincial government wasted no time in asking police to move them out.
About 80 officers from three departments descended to oust about half that number of campers. While police obviously wanted to ensure they had enough officers to handle any eventuality, the show of strength seemed heavy-handed.
But it had the desired effect, as campers loaded their gear into two rental trucks. The undesired effect was those trucks pulling into Goldstream Provincial Park.
The lack of a plan was glaringly obvious, as the campers were ordered to leave the park, then given 24 hours, then given no deadline. Different agencies gave conflicting messages, but for now, the tents stay.
Langford Mayor Stew Young said his city doesn’t want the campers.
“The public is absolutely fed up,” he said. “They know these are not just campers looking for a home.”
Every municipality in the region now has to wonder if the tent city will land on its doorstep today or tomorrow or the day after.
No one — politicians, police, residents, public servants or the homeless themselves — signed up to solve the problem of homelessness. But it’s here, and the seat-of-the-pants method of dealing with the tent city isn’t working.
More affordable-housing units are on the way in the medium term, but that doesn’t solve the present problem of the roving homeless encampment. In the short term, local and provincial officials have to craft a plan, instead of letting the campers set the agenda by default.
Victoria had success in turning the former Boys’ and Girls’ Club into transitional housing for some of those who had been camping on the courthouse lawn. Operated by Our Place, the facility has established good relations with the neighbours and has moved some people into longer-term housing. Other municipalities could look for similar vacant buildings as a short-term solution.
They could also look for vacant land where modular housing could be constructed relatively quickly. The province is willing to help, and has 2,000 modular units in development across B.C. Twenty-one are in Victoria, but of the other Greater Victoria municipalities, only Saanich has offered to host more — belatedly offering a patch of ground on Thursday.
Young says the solution isn’t to drop modular homes into neighbourhoods for a few years. Instead, he says, provincial officials should get out of their offices, get campers the help they need and build proper housing fast, instead of dragging out the process.
While Young’s hyper-efficient attitude to government is refreshing, there’s a limit to how fast anyone can build “proper” housing in a market where contractors can’t find enough carpenters.
If none of these options are workable, why can’t the region’s 13 municipalities get together and identify a temporary location for a tent city until the medium- and long-term housing is ready? It would have to be a site that is not a park and is not over the fence from someone’s house.
The campers could soon be on the move. Governments can’t keep chasing them around town.
