Encampment planned for Victoria courthouse to protest displacement of unhoused

By Curtis Blandy From Victoria Buzz. Read the source article here

A group of activists are planning a protest encampment for the Victoria courthouse in response to the recent displacement of the unhoused community within the city.

Local activists, known as the Victoria Liberation Front (VLF), are planning to set up this protest encampment at the park next to the Provincial Court of BC on Sunday, December 1st.

VLF says the City of Victoria’s displacement of the unhoused community violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as the British Columbia Human Rights Code. 

Specifically, VLF say they are protesting the following:

• The dismantling of several park encampments
• The prohibition to shelter overnight in all but three parks VLF says are inaccessible and in the periphery of the city
• A crackdown on the 900-block of Pandora Avenue which has since been largely fenced off
• The forthcoming closure of shelter space such as Tiny Town and a proposal to relocate it in a neighbouring municipality just as it reopened this year
• The scuttling of the municipal Emergency Weather Response shelter protocol even with funding from BC Housing
• The lack of funds going to Cool Aid Society, which has been reduced to closing services to non-residents
• The refusal to provide the 900-block of Pandora Avenue with a 24-hour washroom
• A project to turn the Centennial Square fountain into a splash park VLF says is meant to chase away the unhoused community

VLF says that recent actions and proposed initiatives threaten the existence of marginalized and disenfranchised groups.

“According to the latest Point-in-Time count, over 1600 residents of the greater Victoria area are homeless, hundreds of which are unsheltered. Emergency and transitional shelters are chronically full due to shortage of beds, to say nothing of the housing affordability crisis,” wrote VLF in a statement of the upcoming protest’s rationale.

“As a result, unsheltered people have grown desperate to the point of suicide, one case which spectacularly made the news on August 1st as Irving Park was set to be fenced off even though the remaining residents had not received any reasonable relocation offer.” 

VLF also points to the fact that in recent years, courts have asserted the right of unhoused individuals to sleep and shelter from the elements, which trumps City bylaws that prohibit sheltering in parks when there are not enough shelter spaces available. 

One landmark precedent in regards to not allowing park sheltering was made in Victoria, while another, which ruled reducing the number of parks available for sheltering is unconstitutional, was made in Vancouver. 

Additionally, VLF says that according to the BC Human Rights Code, people with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodation if they are unable to comply with the City’s Parks Regulation Bylaw, banning them from sheltering in certain parks. 

In July, Victoria’s city council received a letter from the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Pivot Legal Society which warned of legal jeopardy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and since then, two unhoused Victorians have each filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal. 

Along with the above, a petition for judicial review of the latest amendment to the Parks Regulation Bylaw, prohibiting overnight sheltering at Irving and Vic West Parks has been filed at the BC Supreme Court.

“Until the legal system settles these matters, the unhoused community’s predicament remains,” wrote VLF.

“In the meantime, the unhoused community will occupy the Victoria courthouse park, the only one downtown on Crown Land, beyond the reach of municipal bylaw enforcement.” 

A similar protest encampment was set up for around nine months in 2015 until it was deemed unsafe by the BC Supreme Court and dismantled.

VLF says that encampment cost the province around $3 million dollars in legal fees and cleanup costs. 

“Legal recourse, while instrumental, is no longer sufficient to guarantee our rights, and this is why unhoused communities must stand up for themselves against those that would deny their very existences [sic] along with that of the legal provisions meant to protect them,” concluded VLF. 

The protest encampment is planned to begin next Sunday, after a march to the Burdett Avenue courthouse from Centennial Square that will begin at around 2 p.m.