‘Sugar Mountain’ tent city residents to stay put
Residents and supporters of the “Sugar Mountain” tent city in Vancouver doubled down on a vow to remain camped on city-owned land Friday during a news conference that turned violent after a tense quarrel with a passing critic.
After tent city residents were served with a trespassing notice and ordered to vacate a property at Franklin St. and Glen Dr. by noon Friday, organizers with the antipoverty group Alliance Against Displacement pledged to defend the encampment from the city, police and fire department. Last week, city council changed the land use designation of the site to allow for temporary modular housing.
On Friday, the Alliance Against Displacement read a list of demands, calling instead for “housing, not warehousing.” But the news conference was interrupted by a passing cyclist, Troy Tyrell, who shouted that the camp’s residents had stolen property in their possession. Tyrell, who stopped after being taunted by camp supporters, referred to a stack of dozens of stripped bike frames that are inside the encampment.
When Tyrell refused to leave during a heated, five-minute exchange with tent city supporters — who denied that property had been stolen by residents — Alliance Against Displacement organizer Herb Varley shoved the cyclist and his bike to the ground.
Varley was unapologetic afterward, saying the land beneath Sugar Mountain had already been stolen long ago in the first place. Questioned by a reporter about the altercation with Tyrell, Varley said, “He fell down. I’m certain he’s fallen off his bike before.” Pressed further, Varley said it was up to media how events were framed.
Fellow organizer Ivan Drury said marginalized people may sometimes defend their spaces, encampments and bodies “through means that are not always palatable.” He described the interaction with Tyrell as inconsequential.
Drury said the way to eliminate property crime is not by locking up those responsible, but “by eliminating the poverty that pushes them to such extremes.”
Alliance organizer J.J. Riach said Thursday that the city will need a court injunction to force out residents.
But that would be a last resort, city spokeswoman Ellie Lambert said in an email Friday. “Our focus is on ensuring all of the residents of the encampment have warm, safe accommodation, and we will continue to work with them to achieve this,” she said.
She said city outreach staff visited the site last week to ask residents to move into shelter space being held for them. Meanwhile, the city needs the site cleared to start construction as soon as development permits are issued, she said.
The city believes six people are still camping on the site, but protest organizers said there are 20.
Riach said the alliance’s demands include a call for the B.C. government to immediately open 10,000 emergency modular-housing units in place of temporary shelters. The units would need to be at least 400 square feet with self-contained bathrooms and kitchens. Tenants would be protected by the B.C. Tenancy Act and “not guarded by support workers,” Riach said. Nonprofit organizations would not be permitted to staff the buildings.
The alliance also wants the government to immediately begin constructing 10,000 units of social housing and continue building 10,000 units each year so that residents would not remain in modular units. Riach said the alliance is calling for “tenant-run, non-market housing,” rented at the shelter rate, which is $375 per month.
The alliance’s other demand calls for an end to “renovictions” and “demovictions.” Purpose-built rental stock would be protected from rezoning and demolition, and landlords would be blocked from raising rents between tenancies.