Described as one of the “largest sweeps to date,” bylaw officers, aided by VicPD, returned to Pandora Avenue for a second consecutive morning.
On Thursday, May 16th, officers conducted a massive cleanup of the 900-block of Pandora Avenue where dozens of tents were set up.
Grant McKenzie, a spokesperson for Our Place Society, stated that bylaw conducts clean-ups of the Pandora Avenue area several times a week, but there was no advance notice of this significant clean-up.
“As these are not normal sweeps – removing tents and belongings – we don’t get notice. However, this was an unexpectedly large scale sweep that traumatized people, and we could have smoothed the way using our outreach team if we had been given notice,” said McKenzie.
“So many people who are already struggling were angry and upset.”
Photos from the area showed bylaw officers block sections of the street off and take photos of items before packing them into trucks to be removed.
Those living on the streets say this was one of the largest clean-ups they had seen.
“This was definitely one of the largest sweeps we have seen,” confirmed McKenzie.
“The biggest difficulty is the re-traumatization that occurs. We spend a lot of time building trust with people, talking to them about what supports they need to find a pathway off Pandora and into more suitable housing.”
“A sweep like this, sadly, undermines those efforts and breaks that trust. To people in survival mode, they don’t understand that Our Place had nothing to do with the sweeps, and they blame everybody in any form of authority,” said McKenzie.
Following the clean-up, McKenzie said they saw an increase in violence and vandalism.
“We also an increase in anxiety and tears. So the impact is quite large for the whole community.”
On Friday morning, bylaw returned to Pandora Avenue for a second consecutive day and continued removing items; however, the clean-up appeared to be a more routine response.
Before the sweep, it was estimated that there were 50 tents along the stretch of Pandora, which has now been reduced to three.
