A notice to campers from the provincial government to move off the lawn of Victoria’s courthouse by the end of the month didn’t stop a new shelter from being built Saturday.
Ollie Aux was building the structure, using pallets and tools and nails. A floor was in place and a first wall covered in plastic had gone up.
“If no one leaves, it’s not as if they have the power to do anything about it,” Aux said.
“I’d like to see them displace 120 people.”
The province, which owns the land the campers are on, told the campers Friday that they will have to leave due to safety concerns. They have been given until Feb. 25 to comply with the notice to leave.
The government has pledged to create 88 shelter and transitional housing units for the campers — 38 at the Mount Edwards Court Care Home on Vancouver Street in Victoria to be operated by the Victoria Cool Aid Society, and 50 at the Victoria Youth Custody Centre in View Royal, to be operated by Our Place Society.
Don Evans, executive director of Our Place Society, said it will take effort to persuade campers to move to View Royal.
“I think it’s going to be a challenge and very difficult for many of them to go through this change and this move, so we all need to respect that and support them through that process,” he said.
Our Place Society will take campers on a tour of the facility as soon as possible to encourage them to make the move.
“We’ll actually take them out there and find out what we can do to make it work for them,” Evans said.
The new facility is called Choices Transition Home because people will have the choice to live indoors or camp outdoors, he said.
Because the facility is so far out of town, Our Place plans to run regular shuttles to and from downtown Victoria so people won’t be stuck there and won’t need to rely on public transit, Evans said.
Our Place posted job opportunities last week for outreach, cooking, security and custodial staff for the new temporary transitional home. Communications director Grant McKenzie said 35 people were hired to run My Place, the new 40-bed temporary shelter on Yates Street. He expects more will be needed to run the new 50-bed home at the youth jail.
“This is a state-of-the-art facility. It has laundry and showers and a commercial kitchen. It has a games room, TV areas and lounge areas,” Evans said.
“So we’ll try to de-institutionalize it as much as we can to make the people feel they are accommodated, rather than contained, because that’s the challenge.”
The Ministry of Children and Family Development announced in 2014 that it was closing the jail to save about $4.5 million a year and offset a corresponding loss of federal money. Part of the jail remains open as a temporary holding unit for youth travelling between court and custody.
Last week, the ministry said it had no concerns about youth in custody and those at the shelter being in close proximity. The youth holding unit is self-contained with its own entrance and exit.
“There are no security concerns with the addition of the new tenants on the site as that portion of the facility is also separate and fully secure,” a statement from the ministry said.
Youth in custody are always accompanied and supervised by a ministry staff member or a sheriff and most stays are for 24 hours or less.
Aux, who is from Saskatchewan and moved to Victoria last year, said he formerly lived in Beacon Hill Park.
While many look forward to having their own accommodations indoors, there are people who don’t want to and can’t live indoors and prefer to “live a rural existence in an urban environment,” he said.
For his part, Aux said he will build a structure that can be transported.
On the other hand, he said, he may “chain himself to the building.”
