VANCOUVER -- At a meeting this Thursday, Victoria's city council will debate a proposal to ban overnight camping in Beacon Hill Park until 2023.

A motion brought forward by Mayor Lisa Helps and councillors Marianne Alto and Charlayne Thornton-Joe calls for the temporary ban to allow for "remediation" of the park, which has been home to people experiencing homelessness throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic, city council voted to allow tents to be set up in city parks 24 hours a day, with the goal of allowing those without homes to "shelter in place" and reduce their risk of contracting the coronavirus.

As time went on, the encampment in Beacon Hill Park became a hotspot for crime and calls for police service, according to the city's police chief and the officers' union.

Last summer, thousands of Victoria residents signed a petition calling for an end to 24-hour camping in Beacon Hill Park, but the policy remained in place until May 1 of this year. 

Today, only a handful of tents remain in the park during the daytime, under an exception to the bylaw that allows residents who are awaiting indoor shelter from BC Housing to leave their tents up until it is available.

Overnight camping is still allowed in Beacon Hill Park, but tents must not be erected before 7 p.m. and must be taken down by 7 a.m. the following morning.

The motion to be discussed Thursday would prohibit even overnight camping in the park for a two-year period. 

"Beacon Hill Park is not a campground," reads a report filed alongside the motion. "Long before the pandemic, there were misleading posts in TripAdvisor and other places, advertising Beacon Hill Park as a good place for travellers to camp. In addition to the necessary remediation work that needs to happen, closing Beacon Hill Park to all sheltering for a period of two years is an opportunity to clearly reset this perception among travellers and tourists."

The motion calls for a review of the proposed ban in 2023 to determine whether it should be extended.

It also notes that the city is "at an important moment" in its efforts to get everyone currently living outside "on a pathway to permanent housing with the care and support they need to succeed."

Between April 1 and May 15, 226 people who had been living in Victoria parks moved inside, according to the report. That's in addition to the roughly 400 people who were offered indoor housing at the start of the pandemic, roughly 85 per cent of whom are still housed, the report says.

"This report also begins to imagine a city without homelessness and to rethink the relationship between homelessness and sheltering in parks," the motion reads. "Parks have been the go-to sheltering place for people who become homeless, yet that is not their intended purpose. City parks are important public green spaces that are critical to the health and well-being of the urban community. They need to be stewarded for the use of all and for the long term."