It’s been more than three weeks since Vancouver Fire Chief Karen Fry issued an order to clear the sidewalks on a stretch of East Hastings Street of tents and makeshift shelters. A walk through the area Tuesday found little progress in dismantling the encampment, which is mostly concentrated between Main and Columbia streets, where dozens of people continue to live. The homeless, like 43-year-old Melody Watts, who lives in a ramshackle structure with her son outside the empty Regent Hotel, had the same question Tuesday as she did when the fire chief’s July 25 order was issued: Where are we supposed to be? will go; “Housing, more care for people down here — that’s what we need,” said Watts, whose last residence was a suite at a downtown Holiday Inn, where she and many others from the Strathcona Park encampment were offered rooms . Watts said she was kicked out of the hotel last summer after she allowed a homeless brother and sister to live with her in the suite. He said he had a broken hip, a broken pelvis and a broken wrist at the time, and needed a wheelchair to get around. “Now I’m here,” said Watts, who was one of several speakers at a press conference Tuesday called by the Pivot Legal Society to condemn the fire chief’s order. The nonprofit claimed the order led to “violent, forced evictions” of people living on the street.
“We just want to be a family”
At the lectern, Watts told reporters she could stay in a shelter, but that would leave her son Seth, who is 20, living alone on the streets. He said they can’t find a place to accommodate both of them. “We just want to be a family and have our own place together,” she said. “Everybody deserves this. We were taken from our tent many times. We got tired of being taken from our tent. Sometimes, we left it because we couldn’t pack up every day. Another time I was dragged away in my tent while I was still sleeping. That was wrong, that was crazy. I was quite shocked.” BC Housing and Mayor Kennedy Stewart both said at a recent press conference and via email statements that there isn’t enough housing available for people living on the sidewalks. But some have found homes. A man who identified himself as Aero spoke at a news conference on Tuesday that he was arrested by police last week. Photo by Mike Howell
“We weren’t trying to incite anything”
A man at the press conference who identified himself as Aero told Vancouver Is Awesome that he had been living in an alley but recently learned he will soon be moving into a building operated by housing provider Atira. The 32-year-old member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) said living will allow him to be “more part of the community — because I love this community and I want to fight for it. “ Aero’s turn at the lectern focused on the Aug. 9 brawl outside the Carnegie Center, which was sparked when police arrested a man they said was acting erratically and throwing computers at the center. At the time, several police officers were in the area of Main and Hastings as city crews, firefighters and social services workers were on hand to watch and help deliver the pieces to encampment residents as part of a sidewalk cleanup effort. Aero said he was charged with assaulting a police officer after he went to help a friend who was trying to help a man who was dependent on a walker, who was on the ground and surrounded by officers. “We weren’t trying to incite anything,” he said. “They just pushed one of ours [VANDU] members and my colleague saw this and was trying to help him up. And then he was intercepted by police and beaten. And then I saw it happen, so I tried to go and help him, and then they threw me down and they started beating me.” He said the charge is related to the biting of a police officer. Aero smiled to show that he had no front teeth. “With what teeth? I have no teeth,” he said. Randy Crossan says police pushed him to the ground during a melee outside the Carnegie Center last week. Photo by Mike Howell The man dependent on the ground walker was 63-year-old Randy Crossan, who was with his small dog, River, at Main and Hastings when the melee broke out. “A cop threw my walker with my dog on it and then pushed me so hard I was thrown about 20 feet,” she said, adding that she has since contacted a lawyer and plans to sue the city of Vancouver and the police department of Vancouver. “Somebody’s going to pay and they’re going to pay me. I didn’t do anything.” CBC photojournalist Ben Nelms captured a striking image of Crossan on the ground that was widely shared on social media. Crossan said he was once homeless and lived in the most recent Oppenheimer Park encampment, which was dismantled two years ago. From there, he was offered a place to live in a temporary modular housing building in the city. Vancouver Police Deputy Chief Howard Chow in Chinatown on Tuesday. Photo by Mike Howell
“They’re just doing their job”
In a statement last week, the Vancouver Police Department said the officers involved in the fight were “simply doing their job – fulfilling their duty to protect the public and arrest a violent offender.” The officers were surrounded by people who threw objects at them, bit them, punched them in the face and tried to prevent them from making an arrest, according to a statement from Sgt. Steve Addison, media relations manager. Const. Tanya Visindin, also a media relations officer, reiterated in an email Tuesday the department’s role regarding the encampment last week, saying “it was to maintain public safety and our officers had no role in removing tents, structures , wreckage or assets”. Deputy Police Chief Howard Chow told reporters after Tuesday’s press conference that officers stopped accompanying city cleanup crews on July 1. Since then, encampment and littering have increased along East Hastings. “It’s now become untenable with some of the concerns that are out there,” he said from a sidewalk in Chinatown. “Of course, we should try to find more suitable housing for those in need down there and look after our vulnerable. But there are the other complexities of those living in these buildings—this is their community and they want more support, more help , more policing to make it safer for everyone down there.” Meanwhile, police are urging encampment residents to be vigilant and report suspicious activity after someone passed out threatening flyers throughout the Downtown Eastside over the weekend. The VPD has launched an investigation to find who is responsible for the flyers, which threaten to burn tents with gasoline and propane if people don’t leave within seven days. The flyers also include threats against Insite, the supervised injection site near Main and Hastings. [email protected] twitter.com/Howellings
