Feds, province providing $700K to increase services at CRAB Park encampment

More than $700,000 will be used to provide added services and facilities to the CRAB  Park tent encampment in downtown Vancouver, CTV News has learned.

A spokesperson for the City of Vancouver confirmed via email that the federal and provincial governments have committed to provide funding as part of the Strengthening Communities' Services grant administered through the Union of BC Municipalities.

“A portion of this funding ($715,000) will be used to provide added services and amenities in CRAB Park, such as staff support and washrooms,” the statement reads. No further details were provided about how the money will be allocated.

Around 30 residents live in the park at any given time. One resident who spoke to CTV News said he had been there for nearly six months after moving from Merritt.

“You got your own space, you do what you want, you got 100 per cent freedom down here," said Dan. “It’s pretty good, I always told myself I’d be caught dead living down here.”

Another resident, Weston Shupe, said he moved to the park about eight months ago from the Kootenays.

“We’ve got a pretty good community going on here, everybody looks after one another,” Shupe said. “I haven’t lived in an SRO but I’ve heard there’s a lot of bad stories about SROs.”

The Vancouver Park Board tried to seek an injunction to clear out the encampment not long after it started but that move was rejected by the BC Supreme Court in early 2022. Since then, amenities have been added to the park including upgraded washrooms, a power supply, fire extinguishers and an emergency phone.

Park rangers also go through the camp every morning to help clean up, though Shupe said they sometimes come a little too early.

“Sometimes they come in big squads and are ready to clean up and everything but we tell them ‘you guys gotta phone us ahead of time,’” he said. “We don’t like it when they pop up and they’re like ‘ok start cleaning up everybody.’”

When asked what amenities would make the park a better living environment, both residents said showers and washrooms closer to the encampment. The current washroom facilities are about 50-metres away.

CRAB park advocate Fiona York believes there is a “discretionary anti-encampment lens that is applied” when authorities look at providing funding to the encampment.

“It has still taken sustained advocacy by park residents and advocates to actually establish and maintain amenities in the park,” York wrote in a statement to CTV News.