Update: Vancouver police arrest 46 people who refused to leave CRAB Park encampment

by Craig Takeuchi on June 17th, 2020 at 11:00 AM

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Update (June 17):

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) stated that officers, acting on a B.C. Supreme Court injunction order obtained by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, arrived at the homeless encampment at CRAB Park at 6 a.m. on June 16.

Consequently, an estimated 60 people left the site.

However, 46 people who refused to leave remained sitting on the ground by around 4:30 p.m.

After requesting them to leave and warning them about the injunction, police arrested those remaining individuals for civil contempt of court.

The VPD stated that it is not providing any further details at this time.

Original article (June 16):

A Vancouver encampment, which originally began as a demonstration for affordable housing, is being forced to move yet again.

On June 10, the Vancouver Port Authority was granted a 15-day injunction against members of a tent city near CRAB Park, according to CBC News. The campers were issued three-days notice to leave the location.

Then on June 15, the campers relocated from a parking lot beside CRAB Park to a gravel lot about 20 metres away.

Police began enforcing the injunction today (June 16).

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) stated in a news release that officers arrived at the site at 6 a.m. today (June 16) to remove individuals from the location.

Police told some individuals who had broken into an adjacent Port property that they could face mischief charges and are removing them from that area.

Officers arrested one individual for mischief but he was released later without any charges.

The VPD is not offering any further details but will provide updates.

The camp formed at CRAB Park, located north of Gastown, after the homeless encampment at Oppenheimer Park in the Downtown Eastside was cleared out by the B.C. government due to COVID-19, with individuals moved into temporary housing by a deadline of May 9.

The City of Vancouver had previously issued orders in August 2019 for the encampment, which grew in numbers throughout 2019 to over 200 people, to vacate Oppenheimer Park.

A homeless camp had previously formed in the park in 2014, which began as a demonstration for more affordable housing.

The CRAB Park encampment formed as a protest of the province removing people from Oppenheimer.

On June 13, housing and antipoverty activists organized a march from CRAB Park to the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, where they established barricades and held a protest to support Black Lives Matter.

The location was the former site of Hogan’s Alley, a historic African-Canadian community that was pushed out to clear the way for the viaducts.

However, Vancouver police asked protestors to leave on June 16, and officers arrested seven people who refused to leave.

Vancouver Coun. Jean Swanson and homeless advocates expressed opposition to the removal of the CRAB Park campers on social media.