CRAB Park campers brace for eviction

People living in a small encampment at CRAB Park are preparing for eviction Thursday morning.

It comes after the City of Vancouver notified the people living in seven tents last week that it plans to return the site to what it calls “regular daytime use.”

"I'm defeated. Defeated. Plainly defeated,” three-year park resident Sacha Christiano told CTV News on Wednesday. “That's the best way to put it. I don't know any other avenue that's available to make this point to anybody else."

It’s an emotional time for those who’ve been calling this camp home – although there are just seven tents still standing.

While some of the people who have been living in the park have been offered shelter spaces, the prospect of moving indoors isn’t appealing to some who have previously been offered housing.

“All of them have pests,” a resident named Jenni told CTV News. “Cockroaches, ants, they’ve got bedbugs, they’ve got silverfish, they’ve got rats or mice.”

Advocates argue the camp provides a sense of community and other supports including donated food, and are dismayed about the plan to dismantle it.

“This is not solving homelessness,” said CRAB Park camp advocate Fiona York. “It’s chasing people from place to place. Shuffling them off Hastings Street, making them take their tents down. It’s just cruel; it’s not helping. It’s not addressing anything.”

“You can say whatever you want about consulting, housing, all of those things, but it’s not addressing the bigger picture.”

Overnight camping will still be permitted, but structures must be dismantled each morning.

The city and park board did not make anybody immediately available to comment on Wednesday, but say they will comment on the situation on Thursday.

An encampment at the park first began in 2021 and has existed in various forms and sizes since then.