Remaining CRAB Park residents ordered out as Vancouver enforces eviction
Park board began clearing remaining residents on Thursday, more than 3 years after encampment began
The seven remaining residents of the CRAB Park encampment in Vancouver began moving out on Thursday, as the city moved to enforce a daytime ban on tenting there, more than three years after people started using the green space as a home.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge stopped previous attempts by the city to evict people from the waterfront park in 2022, by ruling that there weren't other adequate indoor shelter options for the residents to turn to.
But two weeks ago, Vancouver's park board said the final residents had been offered alternative living arrangements and that there was no longer a justification for the encampment to continue in its current form.
City officials said the park poses an "unsustainable" strain on the park board's resources to the tune of $21,000 per week.
Residents and advocates said that the closure will shatter a friendly and tight-knit community built up over the years and leave precariously housed people with very few options.
CRAB Park resident Sasha Christiano, who moved out on Thursday, said housing advocates have helped him secure a rental at a nearby SRO.
"They knew I was very particular about what I would take and they knew I wouldn't take anything that wasn't within my qualifications because I don't require any extra support in certain areas and I'm pretty well-maintained, I'm an adult," he said.
Christiano had previously told CBC News that due to his many reservations about SROs and supportive housing he was expecting that he would be sleeping rough on the streets after being kicked out of the park.
He said he is now looking forward to having running water and electricity in his living quarters, and added that he will continue to advocate for people who don't have access to the same.
"We're more than just drug addicts. We're more than just degenerates," he said. "There's a lot of really, really intelligent, capable people that are just hard on their luck."
"We have so many people at the precipice, just at the edge of a going over, because the city and and the system and everything else is pushing us that close," he said. "And then, just when we're at the edge, we could tip over."
Park rangers were set to begin enforcing the closure order at 8 a.m. PT on Thursday. However, Vancouver Park Board general manager Steve Jackson, who was on scene at the park, told CBC News mid-afternoon that they'd gotten a slow start to the process.
"We knew that we might have to accommodate a little bit of flex in our timelines just to have the right conversations with those who are still residing in the designated area," he said.
At that time, Jackson said three people were still in the encampment "that we're still working through."
The Vancouver Police Department was also at the park, and the park board put up a fence around the encampment during the move-out process. CBC News did not observe any arrests while reporting on site.
Overnight sheltering will still be permitted at CRAB Park, but shelters will have to be taken down by morning, the park board says.
'Sham' consultations
In an Oct. 23 news conference, the Vancouver Park Board had said it would only proceed with clearing the camp once consultations had taken place with residents.
Officials said at the time that there was "no longer a fair and reasonable rationale" for the individuals at the camp to have priority and exclusive access to daytime public park space, with over 6,000 people living nearby who have little access to other green spaces.
Then, in a statement on Thursday, the park board said it had consulted with the residents to make sure their needs were heard and to make sure transition supports were in place.
But, ahead of Thursday, Fiona York, a longtime advocate for CRAB Park residents, said residents hadn't been appropriately consulted with, and were looking at much worse housing options than what they had in the encampment.
"We just want to be really clear — this is a forced eviction," she said. "There [were] no consultations. Any kind of consultation that happened was a sham."
York said the city is spending significant resources on removing the encampment residents, when there are larger crises that deserved more attention, in her opinion.
"Nothing has been done to really address the fact that we have almost 5,000 people in the Lower Mainland who are homeless. None of this is helping," she said.
Long history
The CRAB Park encampment had been around for three and a half years, and was first set up as homelessness spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It survived several attempted eviction notices by the City of Vancouver in January 2022, as a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that residents in the camp could stay.
Over the years, the camp saw cleanup efforts by the city and a removal of tents as the city reduced the "designated area" accessible to campers.
York said the camp has been studied by housing experts from around the world for its "precedent-setting nature" as a sanctioned homeless encampment, and that its community members took care of and celebrated one another.
Christiano called the Thursday closure an "ending of an era" for a unique place.
"All of this environment that you've been creating for yourself, trying to get things together. Right when you think you've got it — boom — taken away because of where you are and the position you're in," he said.
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