The tense debate over camping in Beacon Hill Park will play out Sunday during an online town hall the organizer hopes will yield solutions on how to protect the park and find safe shelter for those living in it.
“The impetus is that a lot of people are reaching out to me and saying: ‘Look, this has got to end,’ ” said Stephen Andrew, one of nine candidates vying for the council seat left vacant by Laurel Collins when she resigned after being elected MP. The byelection to replace her has been postponed due to the pandemic
Andrew said the City of Victoria and the provincial government have failed to provide proper support for both the people living in the park and the surrounding community. He hopes the online town hall will be a place for creative ideas on how to address people’s safety concerns and the rights of people without homes.
“We definitely have a vulnerable population living in the park,” Andrew said. “Camping is not a solution to homelessness. The issue is finding the space to place these individuals.”
About 340 people who were living in tents in Topaz Park and along Pandora Avenue have been housed in hotels converted into supportive housing units.
However, many people who did not get housing moved into parks including Beacon Hill Park, where about 100 people are sheltering.
It’s the “appearance of lawlessness” that is frustrating park goers, Andrew said, adding that it’s up to the community to take reasonable solutions to the city and the province.
A Change.org petition called Save Beacon Hill Park, started by Cynthia Diadick, has more than 20,000 signatures.
Some park users and nearby residents have said they have been threatened while walking through the park and are concerned about crime and open drug use. Victoria police are investigating a suspected bicycle “chop shop” in the park, and a group of city parks staff is refusing to work in the park after two city employees were threatened.
Members of the Friends of Beacon Hill Park have raised concerns about fire hazards, especially in hot and dry conditions.
Concerns have also been raised about the impact of encampments on sensitive Garry oak ecosystems, prompting the city to seek a court order to prohibit camping in some areas of the park.
Nevin Thompson, a James Bay father of two who lives a block from the northwest corner of the park, where some people are camping, said he has never felt unsafe when walking through the park during the day.
However, he said, if city employees say they feel unsafe, they deserve to have their experiences acknowledged.
It’s also important to recognize the humanity of people without homes who face dangerous situations every day, he said.
“It seems supremely uncaring to say: ‘These people are making life dangerous for us.’ No, they live in a precarious situation, in a life-and-death situation,” Thompson said. “You can’t tell people to get out of the park — where are they going to go?”
Niki Ottosen, a 51-year-old Colwood resident, has been providing food, water, hand sanitizer and sanitary wipes to people living in Beacon Hill Park. Through her initiative, called the Backpack Project, she’s been collecting donations and handing out essential items to people living in poverty for the past 12 years.
Ottosen said she’s concerned about the hate being directed toward people living in the park, who she says “have been forgotten with no support and no services.”
She said she recently asked a man living in the park how she could help him.
“This senior citizen said to me, in such a pleaful way, ‘I just want a shower,’ ” she said. “It’s breaking my heart.”
Ottosen would like to see showers, hand-washing stations and washrooms installed so that people can take care of their hygiene. Right now there’s only one portable toilet and one hand-washing station, which she called “pathetic.”
She called the petition a “knee-jerk reaction” to a problem society has been facing for decades and which has been laid bare by the pandemic.
Many people have been forced onto the streets when emergency shelters closed and then limited their capacity due to COVID-19. Some were also couch surfing or staying with friends and found themselves homeless when the pandemic forced people to self-isolate, Ottosen said.
“It’s not about us and them. We are them.”
The online townhall is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. To register, go to eventbrite.ca and search for Beacon Hill Park.
