Vancouver’s last 2 homeless camps cost the city $6M, the cost of 2 more has yet to be calculated – BC | 24CA News
A pair of longstanding homeless encampments within the City of Vancouver have price taxpayers greater than $6 million since 2018, knowledge obtained by Global News reveals.
And with folks nonetheless residing in tents in two extra encampments alongside Hastings Street and in CRAB Park, the brand new civic authorities says decreasing ongoing money circulate gained’t occur in a single day.
City data obtained by Global News and in response to a Vancouver Police Department freedom of knowledge request revealed greater than $3.5 million in providers and prices related to the 18-month Oppenheimer Park encampment from October 2018 to June 2020.
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That determine excludes hearth prices, that are estimated to be a minimum of $363,400, for implementing the hearth chief’s order in 2019.
The estimated city-wide complete prices of the Strathcona Park encampment from June 2020 to Oct. 2021 are $2.2 million, in line with town.
Strathcona’s price ticket consists of $620,000 spent by the Vancouver Park Board to remediate five-plus hectares of the East Vancouver greenspace within the six months after the 10-month encampment led to April 2021.
Strathcona Residents Association vice-president Katie Lewis mentioned the human prices are a lot larger.
“People died you know, as a result of those encampments,” Lewis instructed Global News in an interview Thursday.
“That is way bigger than any number could be.”
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Last May, a person was murdered in CRAB Park, and the continuing encampment there noticed a mass stabbing in October and a significant tent hearth in December.
An harmless man was additionally murdered within the earlier Oppenheimer Park encampment. The identical encampment additionally was the scene of a capturing and what Vancouver police described as a “horrific” sexual assault.
Strathcona Park’s tent metropolis was the scene of fires, overdose deaths and the intense assaults of two males, one in every of whom later died.
Lewis, who mentioned she was attacked by a stranger through the chaos related to the Strathcona Park encampment in Oct. 2020, is hopeful the brand new ABC majority on Vancouver metropolis council shall be extra proactive in addressing the difficulty.
“Not only for our neighbourhoods but also, most importantly, for the people, for the true vulnerable people living within these encampments, because they deserve better.”
Vancouver’s mayor mentioned town can’t remedy this alone.
“These challenges did not creep up overnight and they are significant and they will take time,” Ken Sim instructed Global News in an interview Thursday.
B.C. Premier David Eby has mentioned he doesn’t help encampments, and Sim mentioned town is working with the province, which has agreed to supervise the trail ahead.
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When requested how rather more metropolis cash will go into encampments, Sim mentioned the brand new civic authorities shall be fiscally prudent however admitted there shall be essential expenditures.
“Make no mistake about it, we have a humanitarian crisis going on in our city and we will be allocating resources to these issues,” Sim mentioned.
The cash spent on Strathcona Park’s encampment alone may have lined many metropolis initiatives – together with the $2.2 million Chinatown Action Plan authorized by council earlier this week.
“It’s definitely not a good use of taxpayer funds when we have so many pressing issues,” Green metropolis councillor Pete Fry mentioned.
But so long as the courts preserve folks can’t be evicted from parks if viable housing alternate options will not be accessible, Fry mentioned town’s arms are successfully tied.
“It really puts the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Park Board in a very difficult position,” he added.
The prices of the continuing CRAB Park encampment, which was established in May 2021, have but to be calculated.
The park board just lately put in a brand new transformer to supply electrical energy to the encampment after a spokesperson mentioned vandalism to the ability provide was found in December, leading to main electrical hazards.
“Let’s build places where people can live that are preferable to sleeping in a tent outside, and then I think you’ll actually see a shift,” Lewis mentioned.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
