Chaos and Confusion Following Victoria Council Putting Parks Sheltering Bylaw on Hold

Yesterday, after being subjected to an intense barrage of criticism pertaining to its most recent parks sheltering bylaw, the City of Victoria announced it would effectively put the measure on hold by sending it back to committee. If I understand correctly, it’s been sent to some kind of administrative limbo by postponing its entry into force. Of course councillor Dave Thompson has a slightly different take:

If you’re confused, that’s normal; so am I. To make matters worse, councillors Krista Loughton and Jeremy Caradonna coauthored an open letter attempting to rationalise the process in a way that only exarcerbates the cognitive dissonance. In short, the council tried to mitigate a PR disaster, only to create a communications disaster, because now everybody wonders what’s going to happen.

I reached out to Niki Ottosen of the Backpack Project for comments. While lamenting the lack of transparency and clarity behind the council’s decision process, her main concern was the uncertainty surrounding the housing coordinator (formally referred to as “parks relocation coordinator”) that was supposed to be assigned in conjunction with the upcoming sheltering bylaw, via a provincial program called a Homelessness Community Action Grant. This coordinator shall have the unenviable mandate of finding housing for everyone that was listed as sheltering in proscribed parks by some arbitrary cutoff date, and to complete the task by September 30th, a deadline widely considered delusional. Especially since the said coordinator hasn’t been hired yet.

Rumours abound that the grant would go to the See Spring Mental Wellness Coalition, which would make sense given its past relationship with the city, and would be an interesting way to mend a recent rift caused by the confiscation of an expensive solar-powered mobility scooter and the arrest of one of its members.

I’ve also interviewed a homeless man I will name J for the purpose of this article, who actually tried to find this housing coordinator after having recently been released from jail only to struggle to get his bearings amid this turmoil. Apparently, Pacifica Housing told him there would be no housing coordinator, and that the role was to be assumed by the Housing Action Response Team (HART) (I’ve found some supporting evidence behind this, by the way). Who’s telling the truth? Who knows…

So, who’s this HART team J is supposed to work with to get off the streets? I wish I knew. It’s some kind of black box without even a website. According to a post on VicPD’s website, “HART partners include B.C. Housing, City of Victoria Bylaw Enforcement Services, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Pacifica Housing, Island Health and many others.” Great! So it’s everybody and nobody. And its contact information is: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” I can’t even reach out to them requesting comments.

In the meantime, J is sleeping at Hollywood Park while he still can. He told me that if he gets booted off, his last resort may be to commit a crime and go back to jail on purpose, because that might be the last remaining location where he could find food and shelter. And since I wrote that the homeless are treated worse than prisoners, I can’t even dissuade him from going down that road. All because the city has made the system unnavigable, whether by crass incompetence or some sardonic plan worthy of a Dr. Evil parody. At least the carceral system is quick to access and easy to navigate, unlike any other government program.