Social workers association calls for collaborative approach to address tent encampments in B.C.

The B.C. Association of Social Workers is calling on municipal governments in the province to adopt what it describes as a more collaborative approach to address homelessness, instead of resorting to police force.

Michael Crawford, president of the Vancouver-based organization, made the plea on Monday after the City of Williams Lake in the central Interior decided to dismantle the tent encampment at Herb Gardner Park, near city hall. Local news outlet The Williams Lake Tribune reported that the encampment was dismantled Monday afternoon.

Crawford, who lives in Kamloops, said the use of police force creates more trauma for vulnerable people. 

"Governments and other stakeholders are just going to have to get together and develop a bit of a better approach, because we know that criminalizing this type of behaviour does not work," he told host Shelley Joyce on CBC's Daybreak Kamloops. 

"[I'm] absolutely not opposed to taking down encampments, but it needs to be done in a bit of an orderly, co-ordinated way, and it needs to be done in collaboration with a lot of stakeholder groups, including people with lived and living experience of this problem."

Seeking police assistance

Crawford's critique echoes those of homeless advocates in Vancouver, who have said the removal of tents on East Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside further isolated people already struggling with homelessness, addictions, and mental health issues.

But Vancouver city manager Paul Mochrie defended the city's actions, saying the encampment made the neighbourhood more dangerous. 

The Vancouver Police Department, who supported the city during the tent removal, said there had been a nine per cent increase in assaults in the area since last August, when the encampment began.

Similarly, Gary Muraca, chief administrative officer with the City of Williams Lake, said the city sought the RCMP's help because the number of tents had been rapidly growing since early last week, creating a host of safety and hygiene concerns.

"Open drug use, open consumption of alcohol, public nudity [and] defecation around city hall in the vestibules, and there's a seniors complex right beside the park … that overlooks the encampment," he said on Daybreak Kamloops.

"Nobody likes to tell the people that are occupying that they have to move to another location, but I also don't like to have the conversation with the seniors that they have to shut their blinds or tell our staff that they can't come in the vestibules and watch for needles and human feces."

Muraca said the city has been working with the provincial Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and the Canadian Mental Health Association Cariboo Chilcotin on solutions to homelessness and addiction.

No 'magic bullet'

Crawford argues that affordable housing for vulnerable people is key.

"When you're taking someone's tent and their sleeping bag and their other belongings away from them and leaving them without access to any kind of housing, all it does is move the problem around," he said.

He adds that insights from people with lived experiences are important when it comes to pursuing effective solutions to homelessness and addiction. 

But Muraca says local governments often have to consider the interests of different sectors of the community, and in doing so it has little choice but to remove tent encampments. 

"I don't think there is any magic bullet, but when local governments are dealing with this, we can't find our way out of these situations," he said.

"The only mechanism you have in the toolbox of a local government … is to remove the encampments."