{"id":13292,"date":"2019-10-29T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=13292"},"modified":"2022-10-09T07:16:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:16:20","slug":"where-do-canadian-tent-city-residents-go-when-evicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/where-do-canadian-tent-city-residents-go-when-evicted\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Do Canadian Tent City Residents Go When Evicted?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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‘Sometimes Life Is Harder Than the Streets’<\/h2>\n

The 30 seconds in the morning where you wake up and forget about all this is the best part of the day. And that sucks.<\/em><\/p>\n

What she wants to forget is the small detail that she\u2019s about to be evicted. And she\u2019s not alone. More than 100 fellow residents of Oppenheimer Park<\/a>, Vancouver\u2019s long standing tent city, were served with an eviction notice in August 2019, leaving them with some difficult decisions to make.<\/p>\n

Tent cities are on the rise<\/a> across North America, particularly along the milder West Coast. Homeless encampments have appeal for people living rough. They offer a sense of community, a perceived measure of protection, and not insignificantly, a place to call home. However, tent cities also attract a lot of attention from the housed public and city officials. This unwanted attention has led to an increasing number of tent city residents being evicted and left to find new homes.<\/p>\n

Officials Present Many Reasons, Few Solutions<\/h3>\n

Vancouver police noted that public safety<\/a> was among their chief concerns when deciding to remove Oppenheimer Park\u2019s tent city. According to the Vancouver Police Department, the homeless camp \u201cis attracting so much violence, drug dealing and gangs that it has become an intolerable crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police calls to the park have increased substantially in recent months, correlating with an increase in stabbings and attacks with weapons. Providing numbers to back up these claims, the VPD states that 700 calls to police for service have been made since the beginning of the year. They\u2019ve seized 223 guns in the district where the park is and 476 other weapons.<\/p>\n

Oppenheimer Park may be an extreme example of violence seen in tent cities. Other encampments are relatively safe, but are facing less tolerance than in the past. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is home to a tent city<\/a> underneath highway I-794. Its 90 residents were served with the following notice on October 4, 2019:<\/p>\n

\"tent<\/p>\n

The sole reason cited in this case? \u201cCamping on highways is unlawful.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n

Summer 2019 also saw eviction notices handed out at a tent city in Moncton, New Brunswick. Public sentiment<\/a>\u00a0was cited as the reason for the city\u2019s decision. City council member Dawn Arnold explained it this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want everyone in our community to be safe, that is our goal. And I think we need to clean things up.\u201d Significantly Arnold failed to elaborate on what threats to public safety the downtown camp presented.<\/p>\n

Campers Remain Skeptical of Housing \u2018Solutions\u2019<\/h3>\n

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,<\/em> and home planning is no exception. Many campers are hesitant to accept the reassuring sentiments of city officials that all campers will be welcomed into shelters with open arms.<\/p>\n

Candace Bryar, quoted at the outset, is aware that BC Housing, a government-run affordable housing organization that operates in Vancouver, has assured the residents they will all get lodging. She\u2019s skeptical. \u201cIf something actually goes my way here, I will be shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hailey Hachey, a 21-year-old Canadian that spent some time in a recently removed tent city in New Brunswick<\/a>, says that many people prefer living outdoors to staying in shelters. Why?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have authority figure issues. It\u2019s one of the biggest reasons we stay on the streets. There\u2019s no authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

While statements like his may sound needlessly cynical (and perhaps slightly anti-establishmentary), they are symptomatic of broken promises and abused trust between the homeless community and authority figures. Michael Fougere, who currently lives in shelter but knows many in the Moncton tent city, shares Hachey\u2019s concerns:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are [the tent city residents] going to go? What kind of help are they going to get? \u2018Cause they don\u2019t even have the shelter that they supposedly said they were going to have done up.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n

Ryder Patriquin, 29, also living in Moncton, has an idea of where former tent city residents will end up. He was evicted earlier this summer from the Albert Street tent city and has been living in a makeshift shelter ever since, periodically moving to different locations throughout the city. Patriquin thinks other evicted tenants will follow his example:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to become a problem. People everywhere, the crime rate might go up again, who knows?\u201d He says his door is open. \u201cThe spot I have is big enough and welcome for a few people.\u201d He continues: \u201cPeople have lost their will throughout their life to do anything else other than this. It\u2019s a comfortable, carefree kind of escape from normal day life\u2014as hard as it is. But sometimes life is harder than the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a tent city removal in Peterborough, Ontario, housing advocate Rachelle Sauve said she fears the people leaving the park will end up in even less secure places. \u201cI know some people have found shelter in people\u2019s backyards \u2026 There\u2019s a few new people in the alleyways.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also identifies what she feels is a missing ingredient in many housing talks. \u201cThose who have lived in tent cities and experienced homelessness must be involved in those talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaining residents\u2019 perspective might help bridge the gap between perceived housing solutions and tent city dwellers\u2019 realities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Sometimes Life Is Harder Than the Streets’ The 30 seconds in the morning where you wake up and forget about all this is the best part of the day. And that sucks. What she wants to forget is the small … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[295,183,456,697],"tags":[10800,253,12383,832,515,508,7553],"coauthors":[9560],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19582,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13292\/revisions\/19582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13292"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}