Noose Tightens Around Unhoused Campers’ Necks

Planned improvements at both Stadacona Park and Topaz Park have led to unhoused campers being relocated to narrow strips of grass, even as street sweeps intensify on Pandora Avenue, leaving the homeless and observers alike wondering where campers will go next.

Ahead of the construction of a new playground, the City has declared nearly all of the park to be closed for sheltering, with the exception of a tiny strip in the far back, barely as large as a tennis court. I’ve marked it on the featured image above just in case you struggle to find it, and it is indeed as small as it looks on the map.

Of course observers are quick to comment that campers do not and will not stick to the designated area. The measure is as futile as it is dehumanising.

Meanwhile, at Topaz Park campers have been relocated uphill to a fenced area by the skate park, which has the looks of a ghetto. It also seems to be continually monitored by the police; a patrol car showed up while I was there and may only have left because I was conspicuously watching, while another went by the park just ten minutes afterward.

As if it weren’t enough, Topaz campers have been moved to an area off the shade, just as we expect a heat wave. The timing is about as callous as in last November, when the bylaw officers cleared the Pandora Avenue encampment right before a snowstorm.

The new encampment also raises objections with the neighbours, pertaining to its proximity with a skate park used by youngsters, while its location coincides with a projected pickleball court, which means the campers shall be displaced yet again before long.

In other words, these “park improvements” are simply the City’s renoviction strategy to counter encampments: just build an improvement at every strip of grass until there is nowhere left to camp. Brilliant.

But fear not! The City of Victoria, in its luminous magnanimity and foresight, redirects anyone dissatisfied with the current arrangements to other parks, which from Topaz Park are located from 30 (Regatta Point) to 75 minutes (Gonzales Park) on foot, far from community centres, harm reduction resources, and obviously beyond the reach of disabled people with mobility issues.