Victoria cracks down on urban campers

Victoria city council plans to crack down on homeless people who camp out on a grassy median after three people were struck and killed on the busy downtown boulevard.

On Thursday, council is expected to debate a bylaw amendment would make it illegal for anyone to camp or loiter on the city's boulevards and medians.

The 900 block of Pandora Avenue is home to Victoria's largest drop-in centre for homeless people. The block also includes the offices of addiction doctors and the Ministry of Housing and Social Development. 

As a result, about 30 to 40 people camp out each night on the grassy median running down Pandora Avenue.

Three homeless people have been killed in accidents on the block over the past 18 months and the number of collisions involving pedestrians has increased 157 per cent since 2005, Victoria police say.

Sgt. Grant Hamilton says it's the most dangerous block in the city for pedestrians, which is why police support a street-camping ban.

"This is about public safety, right, first and foremost," Hamilton said. "Pandora is one of the busiest streets into town —15,000 cars per day. There's people there suffering from severe drug addiction, possibly mental illness, and they have a diminished mental capacity to maybe be as aware of their surroundings as other people are, and I think what we're seeing is a recipe for disaster and we've encountered that already."

And soon winter driving conditions are likely to make it worse, Hamilton said.

"The days are getting shorter and when it gets darker and it's raining, its hard to see people in the mornings," he said. "And you couple that with people with a diminished mental capacity because they're high and they're jumping out in traffic, or they're stumbling around … it's just a matter of time before we have another fatality there."

The influx of campers on Pandora Street followed a ruling by the B.C. Court of Appeal in December 2009 that homeless people can set up temporary camps between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. in communities when no shelter space is available.