With police support, workers remove tents and structures from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
Efforts to dismantle an encampment on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside were met with resistance Wednesday, and at least one person has been arrested.
In a social media post, the Vancouver Police Department said that people within a "protest group have begun throwing projectiles at VPD officers and spraying them with fire extinguishers."
Neighborhood residents, supporters of the displaced campers, and members of activist and advocacy groups have gathered in response to the deployment of dozens of officers, marching along East Hastings Street.
City officials, including the mayor, the fire chief, and the chief of the VPD held a news conference earlier Wednesday, at which they said they were moving forward with plans to bring the encampment to an end, citing public safety concerns.
The move has been anticipated since Monday, when the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) released leaked city documents outlining a new plan to end the encampment with a “two stage approach”—including a police-led operation.
Transit buses were detoured and the road was completely closed to traffic as police set up barricades.
“To ensure the safety and privacy for people within the encampment, we have limited public access,” the VPD said in a tweet Wednesday morning
Traffic cameras at the Main and Hastings intersection were out of service for about 30 minutes, shortly after the VPD was deployed, which city officials addressed at a news conference Wednesday morning.
“That was a mistake,” said City Manager Paul Mochrie. “We are working to provide as much transparency as possible, including a pool camera in the area.”
Asked about limits placed on access for media and legal observers, VPD Chief Const. Adam Palmer said they were necessary to prevent a "free for all."
SAFETY AND FIRE CONCERNS
Officials said the longer the street camp continues, the greater the odds that people living there will be harmed.
“Every day, we are hearing new and sometimes horrific stories: theft, vandalism, senseless acts of violence, violence against women, and more specifically, violence against Indigenous women,” Mayor Ken Sim said.
The city said in a statement that it has been working on the street daily to address fire, life and safety concerns identified in an order issued by fire Chief Karen Fry in July last year.
“More than 400 outdoor fires on East Hastings have occurred over the last eight months. Four people have already been injured this year,” reads the city’s statement.
According to Fry, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services has seized 1,600 propane tanks from the encampment, where there have been 16 tent fires so far this year.
“More tents go down and more tents go up. It's not getting any better,” Fry said. “It's a matter of time before more lives are lost.”
Palmer said it is becoming increasingly challenging to keep people safe in the area.
“The Downtown Eastside encampment is fraught with serious crime, violence and dangerous weapons, which have proliferated in this neighbourhood. Street-level assaults within the encampment have increased 27 per cent and nearly half of those are being committed by strangers.”
THE REMOVAL PROCESS SO FAR
People currently living in the encampment are being encouraged to accept shelter offers.
“While shelters are far from ideal, they provide a safer option than sheltering in an entrenched encampment,” reads the statement.
However, at the news conference, no public official could say for certain where exactly the people living on the street would end up, nor could they say whether there are enough shelter spaces available to accommodate everyone who is being displaced.
Last week, the city said there were 117 people living in 74 tents and other structures along East Hastings Street—down from 180 at the encampment’s peak in August.
In total, the city says 600 tents and makeshift buildings have been removed from the area.
According to the province, a total of 90 people have been moved from the encampment into housing since July.
VANCOUVER’S PAST ENCAMPMENTS
Tent communities in Vancouver have been common.
In April two years ago, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth told campers at the city's Oppenheimer Park that they could leave or choose to accept the housing they were offered. More than 200 campers had been living in the park for months.
Many of those campers then moved on to nearby Strathcona Park, which was also shut down months later after complaints of escalating crime.
Pivot Legal Society, which advocates for those on the Downtown Eastside, called the dismantling of the Hastings Street site a “gross human rights violation.”
“There is nowhere for people to go,” it says in a tweet. “(This is) a massive waste of public resources and a dangerous ploy to pretend to be doing something.”
The decision to remove the Hastings Street camp comes despite a B.C. Supreme Court order from Justice F. Matthew Kirchner, who said Vancouver's park board wasn't justified in issuing two eviction orders for those living in CRAB Park.
Kirchner found the orders unreasonably assumed there were enough indoor shelter spaces to accommodate campers who had been forced out.
Similar court orders have since been made allowing camps to remain in Victoria and Prince George.
With files from The Canadian Press.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
From essential goods to common stocking stuffers, Trudeau offering Canadians temporary tax relief
Canadians will soon receive a temporary tax break on several items, along with a one-time $250 rebate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday.
She thought her children just had a cough or fever. A mother shares sons' experience with walking pneumonia
A mother shares with CTVNews.ca her family's health scare as medical experts say cases of the disease and other respiratory illnesses have surged, filling up emergency departments nationwide.
Trump chooses Pam Bondi for attorney general pick after Gaetz withdraws
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday named Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, to be U.S. attorney general just hours after his other choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration.
A one-of-a-kind Royal Canadian Mint coin sells for more than $1.5M
A rare one-of-a-kind pure gold coin from the Royal Canadian Mint has sold for more than $1.5 million. The 99.99 per cent pure gold coin, named 'The Dance Screen (The Scream Too),' weighs a whopping 10 kilograms and surpassed the previous record for a coin offered at an auction in Canada.
Putin says Russia attacked Ukraine with a new missile that he claims the West can't stop
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that Moscow has tested a new intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine, and he warned that it could use the weapon against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use their missiles to strike Russia.
Here's a list of items that will be GST/HST-free over the holidays
Canadians won't have to pay GST on a selection of items this holiday season, the prime minister vowed on Thursday.
Video shows octopus 'hanging on for dear life' during bomb cyclone off B.C. coast
Humans weren’t the only ones who struggled through the bomb cyclone that formed off the B.C. coast this week, bringing intense winds and choppy seas.
Taylor Swift's motorcade spotted along Toronto's Gardiner Expressway
Taylor Swift is officially back in Toronto for round two. The popstar princess's motorcade was seen driving along the Gardiner Expressway on Thursday afternoon, making its way to the downtown core ahead of night four of ‘The Eras Tour’ at the Rogers Centre.
Service Canada holding back 85K passports amid Canada Post mail strike
Approximately 85,000 new passports are being held back by Service Canada, which stopped mailing them out a week before the nationwide Canada Post strike.