Métis outreach mental health worker Karen Mills-May hands out naloxone kits, fruit and other supplies for residents living at the growing tent encampment where she visits to help out where she can four days a week on Yates St. in Victoria, B.C., on Aug. 9.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
Erika Heyrman says she has spent thousands of dollars dealing with broken windows over the past five years at her pastry shop in Victoria. Walk-in traffic at Wildfire Bakery has plummeted.
Ms. Heyrman considers the tent encampment just steps from her bakery’s front door as part of her community, but it is a scene of constant turmoil, with unhoused residents clashing with bylaw and police officers who make regular attempts to move them along.
One of Ms. Heyrman’s employees had a car window broken by an unhoused man who had recently lost a loved one and had their belongings removed by bylaw officers. Friends of the man were horrified and cleaned up the damage, she said.
But Ms. Heyrman and outreach workers in Victoria’s 900-block of Pandora Avenue say no government agency has found a workable solution to an encampment that has fluctuated in size over the years, with between 60 and 80 unhoused people with nowhere else to go and a neighbourhood beset by public disorder.
“There’s a lot of added responsibility and expense to trying to function in your workplace within this environment, but I also don’t support the strategies around dealing with it,” Ms. Heyrman said.
“If people need to move from our public spaces, which is understandable, we need to have an actual place to offer up before going in … People should never be removed from their belongings. That’s completely inhumane and … it’s adding to the problem.”
It’s a problem few governments in cities hard-hit by the combined crises of skyrocketing housing costs, a toxic drug supply and an increase in mental illnesses have successfully addressed. Victoria, the provincial capital known for its seaside beauty, high-teas, English gardens and progressive politics, has not been spared.
A violent attack last month on a paramedic responding to a man experiencing a seizure on Pandora Avenue prompted the city’s police chief this past week to implement a strategy to remove encampments in the neighbourhood altogether.
Only a smattering of tents now remain along the sidewalks and grassy median of Pandora Avenue since the Victoria Police Department stepped up foot patrols in the area after the attack on the paramedic.
The 900 block of Pandora is one of two sections of downtown Victoria where homeless people have set up encampments – largely since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic – close to shelter and service providers such as Our Place Society and the Victoria Cool Aid Society’s Rock Bay Landing.
Police Chief Del Manak said Tuesday that the nine-week plan involves targeting criminals in the encampment and also removing tents and what police and bylaw workers deem to be garbage and debris. The initiative will be funded through an overtime budget of $80,000.
But Chief Manak also said the success of the plan relies on agencies such as BC Housing and Vancouver Island Health offering shelter and health care to the encampment residents.
“We can only temporarily improve public safety with our part of this plan,” he said.
According to BC Housing, there are 305 shelter spaces and 1,267 supportive housing units in Victoria, with most at or near capacity. Representatives from Our Place Society and Victoria Cool Aid Society said all of their shelters are currently full.
“Efforts are currently underway to open additional shelter spaces in the near future,” reads an e-mailed statement from BC Housing in response to questions about shelter plans. “We will share more information in the coming weeks.”
Representatives from the housing agency, City of Victoria, local service providers, police and the B.C. health and housing ministries have been meeting every week for more a month to discuss ending outdoor sheltering.
The attack on the paramedic last month was a catalyst for faster action.
On July 11, a bicycle paramedic was responding to a call on Pandora Avenue where a homeless man was having a seizure.
Corey Froese, provincial safety director for Ambulance Paramedics of BC, said the patient punched the paramedic in the face when he wasn’t looking.
“The paramedic attempted to crawl away, [and the assailant] proceeded to kick the paramedic in the face while he tried to crawl away,” Mr. Froese said.
Multiple outreach workers who know the assailant said he is not a substance user, suffers from seizures owing to a severe brain injury and can be aggressive when coming out of a seizure. Chief Manak agreed Tuesday that the man was not inherently violent and “needed help, there’s no doubt.”
“I know him personally, we’ve worked with him before,” said Karen Mills, a Métis mental-health outreach worker who founded Peer 2 Peer Indigenous Society and helps unhoused people find supports.
“We’ve been trying to get him into housing for head injuries. That housing is not available. There’s just no room.”
According to Ms. Mills, the man was tasered by police after he assaulted the paramedic, which led to the formation of an angry mob of about 60 unhoused people. Police said they tasered the man after the mob had already formed.
The man was arrested and first responders said they would no longer attend the area without a police escort because of the assault.
“The unfortunate incident that took place with the paramedic being assaulted, I have not been aware of anything like that in the past,” Mr. Froese said. “There’s just absolutely no room for paramedic violence.”
He said paramedics need better training to handle more challenging cases, at both homeless encampments and private residences.
“We don’t really have any training to really help to understand in a real world setting of how to de-escalate difficult situations, and that’s something that I’m speaking with the employer [about] currently.”
For now, paramedics in Victoria are being accompanied by police at least until the end of the nine-week period outlined in the police department’s plan, he said.
This police plan is a result of a “dramatic breakdown in social services,” according to Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto, who called on the other 12 municipalities in the capital region to offer more housing and social services.
“There is great anxiety around trying to find the balance point between individual rights and autonomy, and the responsibility of the collective and the community,” Ms. Alto said. “That is never an easy conversation.”
Although it makes sense to move people out of public spaces, Ms. Heyrman said, conducting police and bylaw sweeps is not the way to go because removing people’s belongings “just adds to the high level of stress and anxiety that people are experiencing.”