Victoria’s tent cities, while controversial, are good ways to create temporary housing alternatives for the low income and homeless residents in our city. Tent cities are clusters of tents that people have put up on public land to form shelters. They are a form of self-constructed housing alternatives, and as the homeless population grows, the need for alternative housing options becomes more apparent. A survey by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness (2013) revealed that on a single night, over one thousand people were found to be sleeping in alternative housing projects such as emergency shelters. In addition to this, many people have nowhere else to stay, because there is such a large disparity between the number of people that shelters can hold and the number of people who are homeless. As a result, tent cities have appeared in a variety of places throughout Victoria. They can be found on municipal public property such as in Beacon Hill Park and Cridge Park, as well as on provincial land near the courthouse. The tent city near the courthouse has recently grown and developed into a place of political protest about the housing opportunities and lack thereof for low-income people.
Tent cities make poverty more obvious, yet remain a highly debated mode of alternative housing due to the contested ideas surrounding the ideas of who has the ‘right to the city.’ As defined by the Oxford dictionary of Geography, the ‘right to the city’ refers to “the right to make full use of the city and to live a richly urban life.” Essentially, the contested ideology here is whether or not an employed, white collar person is more entitled to using and appreciating their city, in seeing parks free of homeless people, than a person who is homeless is of sleeping somewhere with a roof over their head. As a result of this contrast, “the right to the city emerges as ‘far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city . . . The freedom to make and remake our cities is . . . one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights’” (Brown, “The Right to the City.”). The issue is whether or not an employed person has more of a right to design a city how he wants, than someone who depends on a certain design in order to maintain good health.
This topic was recently examined during a court case pertaining to whether or not it should be legal to erect any form of overhead protection, including temporary shelters like tents, on public property.
The court made it clear that it “understood the systemic nature of the causes of homelessness,” citing social factors such as “deinstitutionalization, federal government withdrawal from social-sector housing, rising housing costs and shrinking earning power, policy changes to federal transfer payments, and changes to British Columbia’s income assistance policy,” and that the inability to erect overhead protection would have adverse effects on the health of the homeless (Young, “CASE COMMENT”). As a result, the court ruled that prohibiting temporary shelters on public property “is an interference with the life, liberty, and security” to those who are homeless (Young, “CASE COMMENT”).
The precedent set by this case should be used to show both that the homeless population has an equal ‘right to the city’ as the rest of the community, and that tent cities are good housing alternatives, which provide their inhabitants with increased health and safety.
Despite the establishment of this legal precedent, the effects of allowing tent cities continues to be a topic of intense debate. While residents of tent cities view them as a community where they have the freedom and individuality as well as safety, members of the general public are not always as appreciative of the communities. People frequently take to the internet in order to express their distaste for the tent cities. Commenter Brad Reay did this by saying that residents should “find a job [sic] get off drugs and contribute to society. if [sic] not let’s send them to Darcy island where they can camp all they want! I’m tired of working my ass off to pay for deadbeats who clearly…don’t want to work” (Reay, 2016). The intense controversy and subsequent publicity of tent cities has resulted in more people realizing the need for alternative housing projects, because as the sites grow larger they are sparking wider dialogues about the dearth of affordable housing in Victoria and the need for immediate government action.
Further alternative housing projects have recently been suggested all throughout Victoria, including in neighbourhoods such as Fairfield. In addition, organizations such as Our Place are being granted more funding and resources in order to maintain their facilities and offer housing assistance. While organizations like these are very important, they are only bandages that are being pasted onto a much bigger problem. Homeless people have come to Victoria specifically so that they can join this protest. People from Abbotsford, Maple Ridge, Haida Gwaii, and Vancouver are here in order to stand with the tent city inhabitants and proclaim that “we need homes, not shelters, [and] not jails” and to make it clear that they believe that “the only solution to homelessness is permanent housing for low income people” (Dickson & Kines, “Times Colonist,” 2016). While Victoria’s tent cities are a good form of self-maintained alternative housing, there is much more to be done in order to truly help Victoria’s homeless population.
References
Brown, A. (2013). The Right to the City: Road to Rio 2010. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(3), 957-971.
Centre for Addictions Research of BC; Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness. (2013). Facing Homelessness – 2012/13 Report on Housing & Supports. Victoria, BC: Bernie Pauly, Geoff Cross, Kate Vallance, Andrew Wynn-Williams, Kelsi Stiles.
Dickson, L., & Kines, L. (2016, February 25). After a block party, Victoria’s tent city remains. Times Colonist. Retrieved February 28, 2016, from http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/after-a-block-party-victoria-s-tent-city-remains-1.2184725
Lawrence, J. (2016, February 25). Victoria’s tent city residents stand ground on eviction day. CTV News Vancouver Island. Retrieved February 28, 2016, from http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/victoria-s-tent-city-residents-stand-ground-on-eviction-day-1.2793384
Mayhew, S. (2009). A dictionary of geography (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/
Reay, B. (February 5 2016). Victoria Citizens Opposed to a Tent City. [Web log]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/NoTentCity/ on February 9 2016.
Sargent, C. (2012). Cridge park tent city from the perspectives of participants (Unpublished masters dissertation). University of Victoria, Victoria.
Young, M. (2009). CASE COMMENT: Rights, the Homeless, and Social Change: Reflections on Victoria (City) v. Adams (bcsc). BC Studies, (164), 103-113.