An array of law and bylaw officers enabled municipal workers from the city of Victoria to clear a relatively longstanding homeless encampment on Pandora Avenue—in vain, right before a snowstorm.

Could you tell the sidewalk has been cleared mere hours ago?

The clearing started at about 10:45 this morning and lasted about an hour, during which the municipal workers indiscriminately tossed everything on the sidewalk into garbage trucks, mindless of the fact they were effectively stealing the homeless’ meagre belongings, destroying their refuge, and wiping out their vital space.

This might look like slums to you, but this is someone’s home. And it’s hardly winterproof.

But this is hardly news. It happens all the time, and the only surprise was that it took so long this time for these thugs in uniforms to come back preying on the vulnerable and desperate. What really makes it newsworthy is that it occurred right before a snowstorm, when shelter space is known to be scarce, which means the timing couldn’t have been more callous.

Destroying encampments only make replacements more hazardous. All in the name of public safety.

Furthermore, the sidewalk didn’t remain clear any long. The campers predictably went back to scavenging whatever little they could in a hurry and set it all back by nightfall, before the city got covered by a couple inches of snow blown by strong winds. The pictures I took speak for themselves.

This tent was actually there this morning. The owner managed to clear the area only to return within hours at the exact same spot.

At a time when shelter space is shrinking while the city’s homeless population swells, the initiative can only be labelled criminally stupid. Our beloved tyrants in charge manifestly haven’t learned a thing from the Downtown Eastside debacle: give desperate people nowhere to go and not only will they populate downtown sidewalks, they will eventually stand their ground and retaliate since they have nothing to lose, leading to violence and tragedy. And if some of these tragedies befall the side of law and order, I for one will not shed a tear.

To conclude, and at the risk of sounding callous myself, I would like to point out that our jails are way more comfortable than street encampments, and way warmer in these circumstances. Maybe the solution to the homelessness crisis is to overcrowd the carceral system. If I were sleeping rough on the streets right now, I would definitely volunteer.