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CRAB Park residents seek to quash order limiting tent city

Residents of the CRAB Park tent city say park rangers took their belongings while they were hospitalized

Good morning!

I’m working on highlighting some local bookstores in Vancouver. If you’ve got a favourite place you visit, reply to this email and mention why, it could end up being in the story.

Dustin, who wrote today’s newsletter, is moderating a discussion alongside a screening of a film that looks at the fentanyl crisis. The film won the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at the 21st DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver. It’s next Tuesday, so if you have some time, check it out.

In today’s newsletter, Dustin breaks down a legal action brought by two former residents of the CRAB Park tent city to quash an order that led to them not being able to return to the encampment after spending time in hospital.

A reminder that since it’s Thanksgiving, there is no newsletter. We’ll be back in your inbox on Wednesday.

— Geoff Sharpe, Lookout managing editor

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CRAB PARK

CRAB Park residents seek to quash order limiting tent city

What happened: Two current and former residents of the CRAB Park tent city are claiming in a legal action that a restrictive order by the general manager of the park board left them without a shelter to return to after leaving hospital. And in one case, a petitioner says she returned to the encampment from childbirth, only to find her shelter and baby clothes were gone.

  • The two are taking the park board to court, seeking an order quashing the directive, which restricts sheltering in the daytime encampment and which is slowly shuttering the encampment entirely by closing spots one by one. The park board has not filed a response to the petition, and its claims have not been proven in court.

Background: The CRAB Park encampment has been legally sanctioned as the city’s sole daytime encampment following a decision by the BC Supreme Court in 2022, which overturned orders by the park board general manager to evict the CRAB Park encampment. Based on the ruling, the general manager made an order designating the peninsula in the park as a daytime sheltering area.

  • Vancouver bylaws typically only allow temporary shelters, like tents, to be set up from dusk till 8 am, which is consistent with an earlier court ruling out of Abbotsford that said cities can’t evict nighttime shelters if there isn’t adequate shelter space in the community.

Spring cleanup: However, the tent city was notified in December 2023 that the park board was planning a cleanup of the area without moving the park residents, according to the petition, filed on Oct. 2. A notice in late February then gave notice that residents of the tent city would be moved temporarily during the cleanup, and that anyone living there would be able to move back in, emphasizing that it “would not be a decampment,” the petition says.

  • In an April 3 order, following the cleanup, the general manager reopened the designated area with a set of restrictions that didn’t previously exist for the tent city. The new order barred the majority of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the city from sheltering in the area, according to the legal filings.

Only individuals on a list consisting of 27 people were allowed to return, according to the petition, which said those listed are individuals who the park board says were sheltering more than three nights a week in the designated area, referring to them as the “intended users” of the area.

Decampment by attrition: While the park board claimed there was no decampment occurring, proponents of those living in the tent city said the effect of the order was a slow decampment. That’s because an individual who “leaves or moves into shelter, housing, or other reasons” loses their space in the encampment, and it is forever closed, with no one else able to take their place, according to the petition.

  • “The order does not define the criteria that the general manager will use to determine whether an intended user has ‘left’ the designated area or ‘moved into shelter’ for the purposes of determining whether they have permanently forfeited their spot in the designated area,” the petition says.

More orders, fewer residents: An April 8 order reduced the area to just 16 people who had been regularly sheltering in the area prior to the cleanup and who had moved back in by the April 7 afternoon deadline, and an April 16 order further limited the space to 14 people, adding that individuals had to use the space for at least three nights a week to keep their space.

  • Five more orders followed between May and late September, whittling the number of “intended users” of the encampment down to seven people. These orders, the petition claims, came without warning to the residents.

The petitioners: Those orders, the petitioners say, left them unable to return to the encampment after periods of hospitalization. Robbie (Kaytlynn) Wallace claims they had been sheltering in the designated area between May 2021 and February 2024, but they were hospitalized by a seizure in the week of Feb. 26. Because Wallace wasn’t sheltering in the park on Feb. 26 — due to being in the hospital — they weren’t allowed to return in April, according to the petition.

  • Brittany Littlejohn, a member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation who had lived in the area since early 2022, was able to return after the cleanup. But she left the encampment by ambulance in late June to give birth. On July 1, park rangers removed her tent and all her belongings, according to the petition. Those belongings included a bed and the clothing she’d bought for her newborn.

A video posted on Twitter on July 2 by Stop the Sweeps Vancouver shows advocates and residents questioning park rangers about the practice of taking the belongings of a person giving birth as the belongings are carried away, with no response from the rangers. The petition says Littlejohn was ultimately allowed to return, but as an exception to the rule.

  • However, a Sep. 25 Twitter thread by Stop the Sweeps says park rangers threatened to take her belongings a second time, following the alleged eviction of another new mother, who the group says sobbed while her belongings were taken in front of her just one day after she gave birth.

Legal arguments: The petition says the order to limit the encampment needs to meet a “reasonableness standard,” meaning it “must be justified by internally coherent reasoning in light of their factual and legal constraints.” And the petition says there is “no rational justification” provided in the orders for limiting the encampment, and in fact, they are inconsistent with the initial February order that claimed the cleanup was not a decampment.

Asked in April what had changed to justify closing the encampment, despite the need growing with a 32% increase in homelessness over the last few years, deputy city manager Sandra Singh told reporters the tent city was a temporary solution and that the city has been working to add 400 shelter spaces in the city. She added that the park is intended for everyone’s use.

Zoom out: It’s unclear whether or not the petition will succeed in court, but it’s notable that the conditions that gave rise to the 2022 court order requiring the city to designate the area of CRAB Park as a daytime sheltering area have not improved, but rather gotten worse, as the housing crisis deepens.

  • Clearing the encampment similarly has a low likelihood, as with past decampments, of reducing street disorder. However, it has been the direction taken by the city since the 2022 election, with ABC park board commissioners apparently committing early in their term to the Gastown Residents Association that they would clear the encampment.

More recently, Mayor Ken Sim committed in a statement posted to Twitter to exploring creating a Gastown community policing centre and to establishing a “highly visible police presence over the next five months.” Given all that, it seems unlikely the city or park board will change their position on CRAB Park and homelessness anytime soon.

What it means: Lookout editor Geoff jumping in here. This is an example of an issue, the tent encampments, that have spread beyond the city to become a provincial and federal issue. BC Conservative leader John Rustad and federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre have both made removing them a key part of their election campaign. But like all issues like this, the solution isn’t as easy as politicians would have us believe, and it usually involves housing, which has been notoriously difficult to build in Vancouver.

What do you think about the encampment situation?

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VANCOUVER NUMBERS

🛹 $598: A man riding his electric longboard without insurance was given a ticket for this much in East Vancouver after he was pulled over by police and asked for his licence and insurance. “I almost thought it was a joke,” he said. [Global]

💰 $316,000: The BC Securities Commission claims local business RoccaVerde Wellness Corporation illegally distributed securities worth this much. Among the accused are three directors, including former Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths. [Vancouver Sun] 

💸 11%: The average studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom rental unit have dropped by this much in Vancouver, going for $2,300, $2,700 and $3,700 respectively, according to Rentals.ca.

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WEEKEND GUIDE

Culture Days | Multiple locations | Until Oct 13 | A ton of arts and culture shows around Vancouver | Learn more

Open Studio, Oil Paintings by Marion Webber | Oct. 11-13, 11 am - 5 pm | Brown Road Studios, #101 - 3699 Sexsmith Rd., Richmond, BC | Marion's predominant thematic focus is nature with an emphasis on finding unusual, overlooked opportunities to create compelling imagery. "Making The Ordinary, Extraordinary." [Sponsored]

Canyon Frights | Capilano Suspension Bridge Park | Oct. 11-31, 10 am-8 pm | A Halloween adventure for the whole family | Tickets $72

Vancity Card Show | Canada Place | Oct. 11-13, 2 pm | Over 250 tables of rare and sought-after collectives, plus activities for the whole family | Tickets $16

Fall Planting Party at Renfrew Community Park | Renfrew Community Park | Oct 12, 1 pm | Come by and help plant some plant native species and meet people | Free

Fall Mushroom Show | Oct. 12, 10 am- 5 pm | 5251 Oak St | Explore the funghi world, with opportunities to buy mushrooms, along with live music, vendors, arts and crafts | Tickets $12

Harvest Days | Van Dusen Botanical Garden | Weekends until Oct. 20, 10 am-4 pm | See the famous garden transformed for autumn | Tickets $13

Jersey Boys | Stanley Alliance Industrial Stage | Until Oct. 27 | The Tony- and Grammy-winning musical is still in Vancouver for just over two weeks | Tickets $39

Pumpkins After Dark | Swangard Stadium, Burnaby | Thursdays to Sundays until Oct. 31, 7-11 pm | Ten. Thousand. Pumpkins. | Tickets $17

Stanley Park Halloween Ghost Train | Pipeline Road, Stanley Park | Until Oct. 31, 6-10 pm | All aboard for this spooky ride on the Stanley Park train | Tickets $17

The Woman in Black | Metro Theatre | Today until Nov. 2 | Susan Hill’s chilling ghost story comes alive, directed by and starring Bernard Cuffling | Tickets $30

THE AGENDA

🚨 The sister of Myles Gray, who was killed by Vancouver police in 2015, says she’s “pretty upset” but unsurprised by results of an investigation under the Police Act that found no misconduct by any of the seven officers. The family’s lawyer said the Police Act should be revisited if no violations of the act were found in the investigation. [Global]

🌲 Phase 2 of the Stanley Park tree removal was approved by the park board. There are around 160,000 dead trees in the park from the hemlock looper moth, but only around 11% will be removed in this page. Many people spoke out against the decision, arguing that the dead trees are part of the natural forest cycle. [CTV]

🗳️ Early voting opened yesterday and runs till Oct. 16 (closed Oct. 14 for Thanksgiving). Polling locations are open from 8 am to 8 pm. Elections BC has 32 polling locations open around Vancouver, with at least two in each riding. [Elections BC]

🚑 No, BC Conservatives Leader John Rustad didn’t watch a person die at Hornby and Robson on his way to the debate, despite his claims in the debate. The BC Coroners Service said it has no record of a person dying of an overdose at that location, and BC Emergency Health Services said it has “no record of any patient events” at that location that day. [The Canadian Press]

🧑‍🏫 The SOGI 123 resources in BC schools have been effective in reducing violence and discrimination for all students, according to a report out of UBC. That includes discrimination against heterosexual boys who reported being discriminated against because peers thought they were gay. [Global]

🚔 The man who stole a VPD cruiser on Sunday allegedly hit a cyclist with the vehicle. The cyclist says he’s lucky to be standing on his own two feet to tell the story. [CTV]

🎓 The French-language school board wants to establish more francophone schools in BC, including a lawsuit against the province seeking an order transferring several properties from English-language districts, including in Vancouver, to it. [Vancouver Sun]

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS
PHOTO OF THE DAY

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