New faces in downtown Victoria may have been pushed out of Vancouver tent city, outreach groups say

Outreach workers in Victoria say the ongoing efforts to dismantle a tent city in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside may be having ripple effects on the Island.

"We're seeing some new faces coming down," said Grant McKenzie, communications director for Victoria's Our Place Society.

"They tend not to be people who are the most vulnerable – people who are on the street. For them, moving to a new city is very, very difficult."

Rather, McKenzie speculates that the new arrivals may be people who have the ability to move to Vancouver Island to prey on the less fortunate by selling drugs.

"We have seen a few conflicts on the street," McKenzie said. "People have their own protective communities or family units and when new faces come in a lot of times they're fighting for dominance and that can cause a ripple effect on the street."

Nicole Mucci, spokesperson for Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver, told CTV News McKenzie's theory makes sense.

"There isn’t housing being offered or other solutions, so if people are leaving as a result of the de-encampment, we wouldn’t be shocked," Mucci said.

Another Victoria organization – the Together Against Poverty Society – is stressing the need to distinguish any new arrivals from the local unhoused population.

“The reality is that people who don’t have homes are more at risk of harm than of causing harm," said Emily Rogers, a tenant legal advocate for TAPS.

"I want to keep that centred.”

Mucci had a similar message.

“They’re at risk right now because they don’t have somewhere safe to live," she said. "That’s province-wide.”

The provincial ministry responsible for housing said additional homes should be available in Vancouver later this month. It said it's also working on bringing more housing to Victoria.

It's unlikely that any new units the province comes up with will be enough, given that BC Housing has told the City of Vancouver it doesn't "have access to large numbers of new spaces" on short notice. 

With files from CTV News Vancouver Island's Anna McMillan