Calls to 'rapidly fund' more 24-hours warming centres for Vancouver's homeless

Park rangers and police are seen in Oppenheimer Park on Friday, Jan. 12, 2023, during a period of extreme temperatures. (Source: @AaronPettman)

With dangerously cold temperatures gripping Vancouver, two service providers in the city's Downtown Eastside have published an open letter calling on the government to "rapidly fund" more 24-hour warming centres for the local homeless population.

Warming centres are activated during bouts of extreme weather to provide homeless people basic refuge from the freezing conditions outside – but only one of the locations listed on the Vancouver website this weekend is open all day long.

Most open after dark and only provide overnight accommodations.

Meanwhile, Environment and Climate Change Canada is forecasting wind chill values of -20 C continuing into Saturday afternoon, warning that frostbite and hypothermia can occur "within minutes" for those outdoors without adequate protections.

On Friday, First United and the Carnegie Housing Project shared a letter addressed to Mayor Ken Sim, Premier David Eby and others urging them to open more 24-hour spaces "across the city" as soon as possible, recognizing there is "still an extensive shortage of suitable shelter and housing units" available locally.

Of the limited shelter locations available, some have barriers that make them unsuitable to some homeless people's needs, or lack basic services such as a place to store belongings, according to advocates.

First United and the Carnegie Housing Project also urged municipal and provincial officials to work together on a new approach to encampments, one that's less focused on bylaw enforcement and more focused on supporting homeless residents and recognizing their human rights.

"We understand the complexities of an encampment and we know that the solution to these concerns is a compassionate and holistic approach that prioritizes providing stable, suitable and appropriate housing to those in need and not forcibly displacing individuals to insufficient shelter or a different outdoor space," the letter reads.

"At this point, with overloaded and unsuitable shelters and virtually no vacant affordable housing, tent cities are part of the housing continuum."

Advocates have been raising concerns for months about routine crackdowns at homeless camps, a move they describe as needlessly cruel, particularly in wet and cold weather.

While the city allows homeless people to sleep in tents overnight, park rangers have been attending CRAB Park and Oppenheimer Park, sometimes on a daily basis, to enforce a bylaw requiring most campers to pack up their belongings every morning.

This came to a head on Tuesday, when park rangers, flanked by police, loaded some tents and belongings into trucks and removed them from Oppenheimer.

Ryan Sudds from Stop the Sweeps said some homeless residents were left without blankets or shelter, which would have put them in an extremely vulnerable position heading into Thursday's cold snap if their belongings weren't replaced by community organizations.

"This is the reality with all of these decampments – the park board comes in, they cause a whole lot of chaos, and it's up to non-profits and volunteers to clean up the mess they've made," Sudds said.

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation has said seized belongings are kept in storage so homeless people can claim them later, but advocates have logged numerous failed attempts to retrieve those belongings.

Rangers returned to Oppenheimer on Friday, though a Park Board spokesperson told CTV News in an email that they were only there to "do wake-ups," perform wellness checks, and provide residents with information on warming centres.

"Even if they're taking it easy, the bylaw still stands," Sudds said. "Until that bylaw is changed, people are always going to be under threat of eviction, whether it's winter or a heat wave or an atmospheric river."

Sudds also argued the city’s current approach flies in the face of the mayor's repeated claim that Vancouver already takes a "compassionate" approach to the homeless.

"There's no compassion involved in taking people's tents during winter and throwing them in the garbage," he said.