'Floating in a trash pit': tenters remain at Hastings camp

A man wearing loose-fitting rain gear hunches over a butane single-burner stove. The rain pours down around him, creating puddles in the heaps of garbage and debris.

"See how the heat comes off that? It's like a — it heats that tent up in about 20 seconds. It's hot. It's all on the roof, but when you turn it off it cools off right away. But it's a burst of heat, right?" said Robert, who declined to give his last name due to safety concerns.

"It was between my feet and I fell asleep and I woke up and my coat sleeve was on fire and I almost lit — I lit a flag on fire and I almost lit the whole tent on fire like that," he said.

Robert and about 14 other people are still living in the tent village at 58 West Hastings, despite City of Vancouver efforts to get the camp cleared out last week.

The remaining tents are draped with tarps and surrounded by piles of garbage, much of it left by the dozens of other tenters who have already vacated the property. Hundreds of exposed, used needles can be spotted in the trash.

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Jem, who also declined to give her last name, was packing up her belongings on Monday, though she wasn't planning to leave immediately.

"There's so many people that have left. There's so many abandoned camps. It's all garbage now. We need help. It's too big for us," she said.

"They had the city stop picking up our trash. We had no recourse, and we're basically left floating in a trash pit that's not entirely our fault. You can only do so much as a group of 10 people in a puddle left by 50."

City of Vancouver spokesman Tobin Postma was at the site checking on the progress Monday morning. 

He said the garbage couldn't be cleared until all the campers had left, because with the health risks posed by needles and some of the other debris, the entire lot would have to be cleared by machine.

"The weather is getting colder and wetter and our number one priority is the health and safety of those in the camp and finding ways for them to get into safe and warm beds," Postma later said in an emailed statement.

"We are also providing totes and bags for people to pack up their belongings and then transporting it to a storage facility at 324 Alexander where those belongings will be kept safe and dry."

City officials appear to be encouraging the campers out but not forcing them.

"They've been telling us Thursday, then Friday, then Monday, then they've given us lots of time and warnings and stuff," said Robert. "People don't want to really go, because there's nowhere to really go, except shelters and most of these people, I think, are here because they don't want to be in shelters."

"A lot of people won't do it. I can't sleep in those places myself. I can't get any sleep at all," he said. "I'll go and I'll stay up. I'll stay awake until I can't stay awake no more, then I gotta do some — I do some dope and just stay awake, don't sleep."

"Eventually, you just crash."

According to Postma, there is shelter space available and more coming up on Tuesday, but the people who remained at 58 West Hastings didn't seem eager to use the shelters to get out of the nasty weather.

Jem feared that getting into a shelter would split her and her partner up.

"Are they coming to us today, this morning, Monday with new options? Do they have something planned out? Do they have somewhere for us to go? What's going on?" she asked as she loaded a cart with her stuff.

"I don't know. We're just going to go back to the alleys, I guess. That's where we were before, just getting kicked from alley to alley by cops, getting your stuff taken randomly on whatever day they feel like taking it. That's what goes on, right?"

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