Victoria city council is once again making sheltering in Beacon Hill Park and Central Park illegal to the houseless population of the region.
At the City of Victoria’s committee of the whole meeting on June 15th, the Assistant Director of Parks and Open Spaces, Derrick Newman, presented bylaw amendments that would prohibit sheltering in the two city parks.
This would directly impact Victoria’s houseless population, but is being done in an attempt to improve confidence in public safety.
In 2020, the city amended the Parks Regulation Bylaw in order to allow for sheltering in the parks during daytime hours in response to the COVID-19 pandemic reducing the number of available beds in local shelters.
Those amendments were repealed in 2021 by city council once more housing options were made available.
Since that time, sheltering in both Beacon Hill Park and Central Park has been prohibited.
Beacon Hill Park
Recently, the Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court’s decision made in 2022 that overnight sheltering in Beacon Hill Park should be prohibited, due to the terms of the trust the land is held in.
Now, what the city is proposing is to align the current bylaw with these courts’ decisions by prohibiting any and all sheltering in the park.
Central Park
Located in the area surrounding Crystal Pool on Quadra Street, the park was temporarily closed in January 2021 because of flooding, which had a detrimental impact on those who were sheltering in Central Park at the time.
During this time around 30 people sheltering in the park were moved to a parking lot located at 940 Caledonia Avenue.
Since then, sheltering in the park has been prohibited under the Parks Regulation Bylaw because the city is worried about its susceptibility to flooding.
If not these parks, where do houseless folks go?
“Everyone knows that what we are doing with the homeless, or people who are unhoused is playing a game of whack a mole,” said Councillor Dave Thompson.
“There’s several parks, there’s Pandora [Avenue], there’s Queen [Avenue] area… Bylaw goes and moves them along and they have to go somewhere else.”
Councillor Thompson followed-up this statement by asking Newman through Mayor Marianne Alto if, to his knowledge, any sort of municipal or provincial plan is in the works for a place where unhoused Victorians can go instead of going to another place in which sheltering is prohibited.
Newman answered by explaining the nuances and complexity of the issue and stating that there is a constant and ongoing dialogue between the city and external agencies.
“At this point, there hasn’t been a silver bullet or a complete solution that could manage to house all the individuals sheltering in parks and to overcome the current challenges we are seeing in our park network,” Newman told Thompson and the rest of city council.
Following Councillor Thompson’s question and Newman’s answer, Councillor Jeremy Caradonna moved the motion and Mayor Alto seconded the motion. The bylaw amendment passed unanimously.
Stadacona Park
Caradonna brought a new motion up, in relation to this bylaw amendment, in which he believes Stadacona Park should be added to those parks where sheltering is prohibited and more action should be taken to aid the unhoused in parks.
“I think it’s time to move away from sheltering in parks as a viable, long-term solution,” Caradonna said.
“Sheltering in parks became the norm during the pandemic — obviously there was a bit of that going on prior to the pandemic but it became very normal and regularized during the pandemic in part because the Provincial Health Officer made requests to municipalities to loosen the regulations around sheltering in parks.”
“To a certain extent, we’re dealing with the hangover from decisions that were made during the last term and which really come out of the impacts of the pandemic,” he added.
Caradonna stated that those sheltering in Stadacona Park has been stressful on the unhoused who are only legally allowed to be sheltered there overnight from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., similar to the regulations in place for Topaz Park.
He continued by saying the stress reaches Bylaw and VicPD officers who enforce getting people out of the parks as well as general public park users.
His amendment calls for finding a better situation for those sheltered in Stadacona Park, be it housing or some other lodgings before moving them from the parks in which they are sheltered.
After some deliberation regarding how the bylaw would work and the timeline of how to house those in the park of this new motion by Councillor Caradonna, a deadline was set for November 1st to find suitable solutions to the housing of those sheltering in the park up until June 15th.
This new motion was adopted with all voting in favour except Councillor Marg Gardiner, who had concerns over the displaced just turning to other parks and spaces where they will be relocated from just the same as Stadacona or any other prohibited park.
