For people living at the Fairview homeless encampment in Penticton, a court-ordered eviction has raised questions about where they will go next.
“I have no idea where I’m going to go,” said Casper, a Fairview encampment resident who did not want to use her last name. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
The B.C. government secured an injunction Monday to dismantle the encampment, located on Ministry of Transportation land between Highway 97 and Ellis Creek.
In granting the injunction, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Breanna Hardwick ruled the site represents a significant and ongoing public safety risk and is unsuitable for outdoor sheltering.
Casper says the uncertainty is compounded by the repeated need to move their belongings and find somewhere else to stay.
“I’ve been through the daily grind of having to move everything that I have at a moment’s notice until I can find another place that I can park a tent and camp until 6 a.m. and do it all over again,” Casper said. “That’s really hard on somebody. ”
Concerns over safety have grown over the past two years, including the risk from repeated fires at the site.
There have been multiple fires at the encampment in recent months, including a large one in May that had black smoke billowing into the sky.
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While no one has been seriously hurt, a fire last year spread to the nearby Leisureland RV Centre, destroying two recreational vehicles.
Other businesses, including Inland Truck and Equipment, have also experienced fire damage.
Luke Bradley, who operates Inland Truck and Equipment, says he hopes dismantling the site will help ease concerns about property crime and fires.
“There’ll be less fear of you know break-ins, which we’ve had, fires, which we’ve had,” Bradley said. “It will be refreshing for the businesses around here to not have to be as worried.”
While Bradley welcomes the prospect of the site being cleaned up, he says more support is needed for people experiencing homelessness.
“They need help, and I feel like we’ve kind of let them down in a way that we are not providing what they need to actually get out of here,” he said.
Penticton’s outgoing mayor, Julius Bloomfield, says the injunction may provide some relief for businesses that have struggled with the encampment, but he is concerned about the lack of available shelter space.
“We have no shelter space that I know of. The one shelter is completely full, and I suspect the other one doesn’t have that kind of room,” Bloomfield said.
Bloomfield argues that dismantling the encampment does not address the underlying issue of homelessness.
“This doesn’t solve the problem, it just moves the problem,” he said.
The roughly one dozen people living at the Fairview encampment have until noon Friday to leave the site.
Casper says they plan to resist the eviction.
“I’m not leaving without being handcuffed and arrested. So that’s how I’m leaving,” Casper said. “If that’s what it takes to get some kind of attention for this, I think then it will happen.”
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