The Vancouver City Council on Monday discussed tensions between residents of a homeless camp along the sound wall along West Mill Plain Boulevard and neighbors but didn’t take any action.
Council members tossed around several approaches, including setting camping time limits, kicking “problem people” out of the camp and altering the sound wall itself. The sound wall divides a line of camps from neighbors’ backyards just feet away.
A half-dozen neighbors of the sound wall camp spoke about issues they’ve had with campers. One man said he had to put out a tent fire behind his home. Others described threatening behavior from people in the camp and people trespassing on their property.
“I just don’t understand why my safety and my security is being trumped by others.… We are enabling an epidemic,” neighbor Shannon Stamps said.
Condense or spread
Councilors heard from Jamie Spinelli, the city’s homelessness response manager, about why the camp has grown over the past year from a few tents to more than 30.
Last fall, the city shut down camping along West 16th Street near the sound wall using the city’s emergency declaration in regard to homelessness, which allows the city to close areas to camping without adding them to its unlawful camping ordinance.
Since the city passed the emergency declaration, staff have closed several areas to camping.
“But what has happened is we’ve reduced the amount of spaces people can camp in.… The denser a population is, the more challenge you’re going to have,” Spinelli said. “That’s really the rub, is that we have restricted camping so much that people … don’t have any options.”
Now, the city’s camping is largely contained in four large encampments, including the sound wall, she said. Spinelli said if the city closes camping along the sound wall without adding any shelter beds, the problem will increase.
Councilor Sarah Fox said having four large encampments means certain neighborhoods bear the brunt of the problem.
“I know we’ve said, ‘Where do they go?’ But also, I cannot walk out of here and think that it’s fair that since we don’t know where they go,” Fox said. “So I also say that — and it makes me … weirdly want to cry right now — but I also don’t like the idea of sending in our police and the HART (Homeless Assistance and Resources) team and saying, ‘Hey everybody, just leave.’ ”
Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle said the city should identify whether certain people in the camp are an issue and remove them.
“Let’s figure out what it is in that area that is causing the problem and deal with it instead of clearing them out,” McEnerny-Ogle said.
Councilor Ty Stober said the sound wall is a failure of the transportation system and a public nuisance, even before the homeless camp formed.
“If there’s nobody camping there, there will be other people who will come and use the dark corners of the sound wall in order to conduct illicit activities. The sound wall is a nuisance and will continue to be a nuisance until some entirely different design comes up,” Stober said.
Nearby apartments
Councilor Kim Harless, who brought up the issue of the sound wall camp last week, said she’s in favor of closing the camp. She also proposed banning camping around about a dozen Vancouver Housing Authority apartment complexes that house seniors and youth.
Spinelli said many of the city’s largest camps are near communities that are considered even more vulnerable due to poverty and disability. If the city were to ban camping around vulnerable people in housing, there would be few places for people to camp, Spinelli said.
“I understand general vulnerability, but I’m talking about specific properties like Lincoln Place, like Miles Terrace,” Harless said.
Miles Terrace is a 55-and-older apartment building owned by Vancouver Housing Authority. It is close to the sound wall camp. According to an online list of residents, a close relative of Harless’ lives there, a fact she did not mention during recent discussions of the sound wall camp.
Harless said she does not consider it a conflict of interest and believes her fellow council members are already aware her relative lives in Miles Terrace.
Harless said she’s seen issues firsthand at Miles Terrace as she’s visited her relative there over the past year, and has heard from other residents about problems. This relative has had her car vandalized, which caused her to lose renter’s insurance, and had people from the camp accost her, Harless said.
“It just reaches the point where it becomes unacceptable behavior — unacceptable illegal behavior — that is causing a lot of harm to the folks that are living next to it,” Harless said.
