Volunteers descended upon a west Vancouver homeless camp before daylight Wednesday morning, helping campers pick up trash and pack up their belongings.
Word on the street was that police would order everyone to clear out at 6:31 a.m., when the city’s new camping ordinance went into effect.
But the police crackdown never came. And if all goes well, it won’t.
“We’re not going to be doing sweeps, per se,” Assistant Police Chief Mike Lester said Tuesday. “This will be a compassionate process. … The enforcement piece of this is a very small slice. This is a community problem.”
Rather than writing tickets or arresting people, officers will pass out fliers and brochures in an attempt to educate people about the new rules and get them to voluntarily leave, he said.
That’s good news to homeless advocate Dorothy Rodriguez, who rallied volunteers on Facebook to come help the campers early Wednesday after hearing police were going to begin strict enforcement of the ordinance immediately.
“I was going to say, ‘No, we’re doing something different,’ ” Rodriguez said Wednesday afternoon. “I was prepared to go to jail.”
The city council unanimously voted Sept. 14 to change Vancouver’s unlawful camping ordinance to allow camping in public places from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. The move was in response to a federal Department of Justice opinion stating that it was unconstitutional to outlaw camping in all places and all times, including when shelter space was unavailable, because people have a right to sleep.
Under the Vancouver city ordinance adopted in 1997, camping or storing camping equipment in public places had been a misdemeanor at all times. Under the revised rules, people can pitch their tents at night, but camping in public isn’t allowed between 6:31 a.m. to 9:29 p.m. Parks would remain off-limits to camping because they close from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., and laws would remain in place that prohibit disorderly conduct, drinking in public, urinating in public and other health and safety problems.
The point of the amendment was to give police a tool to enforce the camping ordinance, knowing it was legally sound, city officials have said. However, realizing that Vancouver is woefully short on shelter beds for the homeless, the city doesn’t want to crack down on daytime campers in the near future.
“It has never been the city’s intent to take a hard-line enforcement stance immediately on the effective date of the ordinance,” City Manager Eric Holmes stated in an email Wednesday. “This has been very clear, including explicit discussions to that effect at city council meetings.”
As police conduct public outreach over the next couple of weeks, officers will document the camping activity, number of campsites, vehicles, people and violations, he said. Police will address immediate threats to people or danger to community safety and arrest those suspected of serious crimes or with active warrants.
Meanwhile, the city will approach the matter from a “multidisciplinary stance,” Holmes said. Representatives from Share, which provides services to the homeless, Janus Youth, and Council for the Homeless are supporting city staff during the outreach and education phase, he said. City parking enforcement and code compliance workers will address trash, litter and sanitation.
“We are attempting to walk a very narrow path defined on one side by compassion for the human aspect of the issue and the other with the need to rationally enforce the laws of the city,” Holmes said. “That path is narrow, but not straight, and we are navigating it to the best of our ability and resources.”
Stressful situation
By late morning Wednesday, the sidewalks along West 12th and 13th streets and Jefferson and King streets contained less garbage and fewer tents than in recent weeks.
Rodriguez said it was “encouraging” that police weren’t taking immediate action, giving people time to figure out their next step. The uncertainty has created a constant state of stress for the homeless, some of whom are elderly, sick and in wheelchairs, she said.
“Everyone’s thinking that someone’s come to move them out, and they’re snapping,” Rodriguez said.
Several businesses and homes are in the vicinity of the homeless camp, and at least one business owner wasn’t pleased to see tents still up at daybreak Wednesday.
“I was hoping to see (police) make them pack up, like the ordinance says. …That would’ve been a really fresh start,” said Chuck Bower, owner of Vancouver Warehouse and Distribution Company at 1101 W. 11th St.
Big rig trucks come and go along the route all day and night where the homeless are camping, and Bower fears someone will get run over. He’s also dismayed by the garbage strewn around the area, which he’s concerned will turn off potential business customers and prospective employees.
“They need to enforce this and get people off the street,” Bower said.
He suggested the city allow a homeless encampment on a fenced-in, grassy lot behind City Hall and the Hilton, calling it “the perfect place” to put them.
‘These are our homes’
Several people camping on the sidewalk Wednesday morning said they didn’t know where they would go if they were forced to leave.
“I’d probably hide somewhere,” said a 53-year-old woman who didn’t want her name used because her boss doesn’t know she’s homeless. “I can’t carry my stuff around during the day. I have too much stuff right now. I can’t walk into my job with my stuff.”
Jerry Crockett, 61, and his wife have been living in a tent on West 12th Street with their two service dogs for a month since their landlord kicked them out. Both are disabled, and Ruth Crockett, 66, has congestive heart failure.
“How are we supposed to pack up and carry this stuff around with us?” Jerry Crockett said, gesturing at the open tent where Ruth Crockett lay curled under a blanket flanked by two small dogs, her eyes closed.
“I would like to know how we’re supposed to do it,” Jerry Crockett said. “We have no idea what we’re going to do.”
Damian Fisher, 25, said he was angry that the city expected the homeless to break camp during the day. He’s not going anywhere, he said.
“They have no right to tell us when we can be in our home, when we can’t. … I’d tell them to turn around and kiss my ass,” the unemployed mechanic said. “These are our homes. This is the only place we have to go. … They have nice, warm beds to go to at night, a shower, a place to cook. This is all we got.”
