It was supposed to be eviction day.
But people camping on the lawn of the Victoria courthouse held a block party, defying a provincial government notice to leave the tent city by Thursday.
A busload of 45 homeless people from the Lower Mainland joined in the celebration. Horns honked and cheers erupted from both the bus and the tent city as the protesters arrived about 4 p.m. waving placards to show their support.
“Our trip here is because tent city in Victoria is being threatened with displacement and we consider the residents of the tent city to be brave leaders in the fight against poverty and homelessness in this province,” said Ivan Drury, organizer of the Alliance Against Displacement.
“It’s not just Victoria where this problem exists. It’s everywhere in this province. … [Tent cities] are created by poverty. But they are also places where the leadership of homeless people is coming together to show the way out of this crisis.”
Homeless people from Abbotsford, Maple Ridge, Haida Gwaii and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are standing with the tent city campers to say “we need homes, not shelters, not jails,” Drury said.
The only solution to homelessness is permanent housing for low income people, he said.
“And until they build that housing, they should leave the tent cities in place as places of resistance and places of leadership in that fight for housing.”
Victoria camper Donna Ambers, who calls herself the camp grandmother, welcomed the protesters.
“This is all our struggle and we’re winning. We’re not leaving,” said Ambers. “We want land. We don’t want temporary nothing. We don’t want shelters. We don’t want anything like that and we want to be able to stay as a community, not dispersed around the city.”
Protester Herb Varley said he had been homeless but lives in secure housing now. If places like Victoria and Vancouver want to be truly world-class cities, housing should be more affordable, he said. “Housing should be for everybody.”
In early February, B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman announced the creation of 88 shelter and transitional housing units. He also gave the campers notice to leave by Feb. 25, citing safety concerns.
On Thursday, Coleman said about 50 people have accepted housing and agreed to move from the tent city. The government will not be doing anything “provocative” on Thursday and will instead focus on ensuring that vulnerable people get housing and mental health and addictions supports, Coleman said.
“It will be no different today than any other day except you’ll start seeing people moving,” he said. “We’ll measure it over the weekend and see how it’s going. We’ve got enough housing for everybody down there, so they don’t have an excuse to not come inside. But they also live in a free country and they don’t have to come inside.”
Coleman said he was less concerned with plans for a protest or “block party” at the site than with connecting vulnerable people to housing.” Whatever they want to do, block party or whatever, makes no difference, because the only people that I’m concerned about are the people that need the help the most.”
Coleman said that if the protesters “really cared about the people, they’d be helping them get into the housing that the two non-profits are doing versus trying to use them as a platform for something else.”
More than 100 tents are still pitched on the courthouse lawn. Earlier in the day, Rev. Al Tysick, an advocate for homeless people, said two agendas were floating around the tent city.
Some people want to take a stand and stay until they are physically moved, Tysick said. Others are considering setting up another tent city on provincial land downtown. Tysick wouldn’t say what other tract of provincial land he was considering.
“I want the tents to be there before it’s on the media or we’ll never get on there. They’ll build a fence around it,” he said.
“Boy, I’d like a community solution with all of us together on this, rather than a them against us.”
Homeless camper Benjamin LaRue decided to move on. He hopped into a Two Burley Men moving truck and was driven to Choices Transitional Home at the former youth custody centre in View Royal.
“I’m going to have a chance at a better life than this,” said LaRue, who is from Montreal.
“I’ll try. If I don’t like it, I’ll go live alone in the woods or go camp somewhere else.”
Of the 38 units of supportive housing at nearby Mount Edwards Court, 34 were filled by Thursday afternoon with Victoria Cool Aid Society saying it expected the facility to be full by day’s end.
Eleven campers opted for Choices Transitional Home in View Royal, where 50 spaces are available at the former youth custody centre.
“With Mount Edwards now filled up, more people will be thinking about Choices,” said spokesman Grant McKenzie of Our Place, noting that a gradual move-in allows staff and residents to get to know one another.
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