Victoria police help bylaw officers clear homeless encampment, some vow to return

On Tuesday morning, along the 600-block of Princess Avenue in downtown Victoria, bylaw officers – accompanied by Victoria police officers – moved to clear a homeless encampment.

The city says the police officers were only there to keep the peace.

Dennis Davies, who is homeless and has been living on that block for four years, says it's a regular occurrence.

"They’ve been telling me every six weeks or so that I’m not allowed to be here, that I can’t reside here," he said Tuesday.

While it may have looked like the recent decampment in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the City of Victoria says Tuesday's move was different.

The city says it was part of regular, daily work happening city-wide to curb the growth of encampments and reduce risks.

"It did get a little out of hand," said Davies. "I mean, I was building a house out of lumber."

People like Davies are not being offered housing today. They were told to either move their tents and belongings somewhere else while the road was cleaned, or have their property impounded.

A business owner on Princess Avenue, who didn’t want to appear on camera, says sweeps like what happened on Tuesday morning happen every several weeks.

He said if the city didn’t deal with the encampment on a regular basis, the street itself would become unusable because of garbage and junk.

On Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a controversial decampment is underway. Some of the reasons given for the evictions was public safety and fire risks.

Locals in Victoria say those risks are present here as well.

On March 27, a fire at the Mustard Seed Street Church one block from Tuesday's decampment resulted in the loss of all the food at the food bank.

"We’ve had three fires set close to our building in the last year," said David Screech, owner of Greggs Furniture and Upholstery.

Screech’s furniture store is just two blocks north of Princess Avenue. He says change needs to happen in the neighbourhood.

"We’re facing a lot of issues and a lot of problems and we need some help from the upper levels of government," said Screech.

Back on Princess Avenue, Davies says he has nowhere else to go.

"I’m going to sleep here, I don’t care what they say," said Davies. "I’m coming back here to sleep tonight."

He and many others say they will be back.

The clean up on Tuesday was a short-term solution in a community that is calling for a long-term fix. 

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