By: Izzy Cheung, Staff Writer
During the spring term, I spent most of my semester at SFU’s Harbour Centre, which made me familiar with the atmosphere around Waterfront Station. Seeing the street performers play instruments outside the station’s doors and watching the bustling city while heading to classes at Harbour Centre became comfortable. I never questioned my own safety — but maybe it wasn’t my safety I should have been questioning.
On the morning of April 5, Vancouver workers and police began removing encampments located in the Downtown Eastside. This included disposing of the belongings of those who call these tents their homes. Surrounding areas were blocked off, with buses rerouted to keep people out. That morning, the streets seemed emptier than usual, and the performers disappeared from their usual perches. The city shouldn’t have cleared these encampments, especially at the hostility and rate they did it at. Clearing these encampments abandons the safety of those living within them, and only leaves them more vulnerable.
The city encouraged those affected by the decampment to seek shelters for help, despite many already being full prior to the clearing. There wasn’t anywhere else to go. Even if there were, there have been multiple reports that these spaces are ridden with pests, crime, and abuse — issues that need to be fixed for shelters to be a viable alternative.
One of the key justifications for the sweep is that the Downtown Eastside will be “safer” without the encampments. The city predicts that without unhoused people living in these areas, crime and fire hazards will be reduced. However, tent cities themselves have not been shown to correlate with crime. Instead, the unhoused are “more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to commit such crimes.” Further, the size of these spaces “are not associated with increases in property crime, on average.”
Disposing tents plays into a game of power and control. The city claims the removal of those who live in encampments and their belongings will create better public safety — but the people that live here still exist. If the Downtown Eastside is prohibited as their living space, unhoused people will find somewhere else to set up — and this often pushes them into even less safe areas. Women are being left especially vulnerable as tents themselves have been confiscated.
Instead of putting efforts towards clearing encampments every few years, the city should seek to develop long-term housing solutions. Creating safe spaces for the unhoused to live would ensure the people who find shelter here can get the help that they need. And the federal government should help fund this — the weight of systemic issues can’t be solved solely by non-profits. Small steps towards this plan have been taken, as 89 housing units for the unhoused are undergoing construction. But who decides who gets to live in these units? It’s far from a permanent solution.
When we imprint on a home, we make it our own — whether that space is a house or a tent. Exercising power by forcibly removing someone from their shelter is devastating. Listening to my professor lecture about power and politics while hearing faint police sirens in the background — I thought about how I was safe behind closed doors — but the people outside weren’t.
To access resources for the unhoused, please go to the online version of this article.
Resources for the unhoused:
Shelter directory: View available shelters across BC, with the ability to specify women-only and family shelters.
Downtown Eastside Women’s Center: Drop-in centre provides access to meals, clothes, phone/internet, washrooms, menstrual products, and harm reduction supplies. Welcome to cisgender, transgender, and Two-Spirit women.
WISH Drop-In Centre Society: For current or former sex workers, WISH provides access to a meal, shower, first aid, and menstrual products, among others. They also have a 24/7 emergency shelter.
This is me . . . Period: Distributes menstrual products for those who are unhoused or are at-risk of being unhoused.
Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society: Provides a variety of programs to Indigenous peoples, such as the Homelessness Prevention Program, Weekly Bread Delivery, Reaching Home Program, and SKEENA Transition House Program.
