Everyone running for election in Vancouver was invited to spend the night in a homeless camp. Only one candidate accepted the offer.

This photo, posted to Twitter, shows Vancouver mayoral candidate Mark Marissen at CRAB Park. (Image credit: Twitter/marissenmark)

Residents of an encampment at Vancouver's CRAB Park have invited every candidate running in the municipal election to spend a night there.

So far, only one has taken them up on the offer.

Mark Marissen, who is running for mayor with Progress Vancouver, spent the night over the Thanksgiving weekend, the day after police reported the encampment had been the site of an overnight "stabbing spree" that left three people seriously injured and saw one suspect arrested.

Marissen made a brief statement about the experience on social media Monday.

"I accepted the invitation to sleep in a tent at CRAB Park Saturday night. I spent the night witnessing both trauma and resilience firsthand, and a community in shock from the events the night before," he wrote.

"Thanksgiving is a great day to reflect on everything I saw - what we have to be grateful for and what we have to do."

However, he was accompanied by a volunteer who detailed what the pair saw and heard, who they met, and how they felt while spending time in the place dozens have called home for more than 16 months.

Among those who welcomed them, according to Melody Haskell, was a man who had been stabbed the night before.

"His face was pale with exhaustion. After talking for a bit, we were shocked to learn he had just come from the hospital: a victim of the previous night, his heart narrowly missed by the blade,” Haskell wrote, noting they were speaking inside the tent where the stabbing took place. “He was stable, but in deep pain. Alive, but still nowhere else to go.”

The pair learned from others in the camp that there had been concerns about the alleged perpetrator in the days prior.

"There were warning signs. Foreshadowing, you know?” a resident is quoted as saying.

Haskell’s account goes on to describe the camp as community of people who carry with them pain and trauma, who came to the park in desperation -- but also as a place where people try to help one another out the best they can and find pleasure in shared meals and music. Haskell recounted how one resident insisted on lending Marissen his homemade cot and how the two were served pizza, ice cream and soda at a late-night gathering.

"Mark Marrissen did not fear for his life while sleeping at CRAB Park. Bundled up in his tent, he did not find comfort in the thought of more police officers or more prisons," Haskell's account says.

"What he found instead? A stab victim who left the hospital in search of better care. A broken man who offered countless cries for help before his violent outburst, failed at every turn by our mental healthcare and justice systems."

CTV News has requested an interview with Marissen, but has not yet received a reply.

INVITATION EXTENDED TO ALL CANDIDATES 

In a letter sent Sept. 26, a spokesperson for the people who have been sheltering on the waterfront in East Vancouver explained why those campaigning in the city for mayor, city council, and park board were being asked to do what Marissen did.

“We are writing this letter because we think it is important that our experiences as people who are homeless are considered by people who are making decisions about housing—and about what happens to those of us who don’t have it," Amos Williams of the Haida Nation wrote.

"Our community is living in a city park because of the housing crisis. We have nowhere else to go. We all want safe homes to be in."

The letter also notes that a number of recent fires at SROs on the Downtown Eastside have led to the permanent loss of or extensive damage to hundreds of units of affordable housing.

HOMELESSNESS IN VANCOUVER 

Vancouver has not done its annual homeless count since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That year there were 2,095 people experiencing homelessness. Of those, 547 were "unsheltered," meaning they were living outdoors – on the streets or in parks.

In December of 2021, city staff issued a memo updating council on "efforts to assess the current state of homelessness in Vancouver and plans for understanding the state of homelessness in 2022." That report found despite the creation of hundreds of new, indoor spaces, "the rate of homelessness remains the same or perhaps may have even increased."

It noted how restrictions imposed because of the pandemic forced more people out onto the streets and into the city's parks. The closure of indoor spaces like community centres and libraries, limits on visitors at the city's Single Room Occupancy buildings, and capacity limits at emergency shelters all "impacted the number of people who need(ed) to find shelter in other places – either overnight or during the day – out on sidewalks and in parks," the report read.

More than 700 spaces – which include both supportive housing units and beds in emergency shelters – have been created since the last homeless count in response to the number of people living outdoors.

Among those were hotels BC Housing purchased specifically to house people sheltering in Vancouver's parks. An encampment at Oppenheimer Park was dismantled in May of 2020. Parks are under the jurisdiction of the Vancouver Park Board, which opted not to seek a court order to clear the park. The province used its powers under the Emergency Program Act to intervene, citing the risk of COVID-19.

Many living at Oppenheimer relocated to Strathcona Park, where a tent city with hundreds of occupants would remain for the better part of a year. An eviction order was issued by the Park Board for April 30, 2021, and everyone had moved out by the next day. Those who did not disperse or move indoors set up the encampment at CRAB Park – where some have been ever since.

An attempt to get an injunction to dismantle the camp was denied in January of 2022.