Social distancing and homelessness - COVID in Victoria BC

Topaz Park homeless encampment, Victoria BC
- Photo courtesty of Victoria Buzz

by Jon Munn

GUEST BLOG – This week’s blog tells a story of how COVID-19 affects the homeless, just as it does communities around the world. The blog was submitted by Jon Munn, an urban planner and SafeGrowth Advocate residing in Victoria, British Columbia. Jon is directly involved in the crisis as a member of a local neighborhood action committee. This is his story about how one city is responding to that problem. 

COVID-19 has revealed long-standing weaknesses in our health and social systems. The least resilient long-term care homes are showing high death counts. Physical distancing in homeless shelters and couch surfing reveals how huge spaces are needed when health orders force marginalized people to spread out in convention centres, hockey arenas, parking lots, and playing fields.

Homelessness is tough to tackle because it’s not one issue. It’s a result of housing costs, lack of social housing, domestic abuse, mental illness, drug addiction, and so on. The easy thing to do is to combine all these issues into one hot potato and pass the potato.

COVID-19 restrictions came to British Columbia on March 17, 2020. The Provincial Health Officer made an order to prohibit gatherings over 50 people. The next day a provincial emergency was declared and local governments and agencies closed or restricted services to ensure a physical distance of 2 metres (6 feet) between people.

Provincial parliament in Victoria,  the capital of British Columbia
photo Joe Mabel, Creative Commons

Victoria, a city of 90,000 people in the Capital region of 350,000, is the location of most regional services for homeless people. At the start of the crisis, hundreds of shelter spaces in the city were almost emptied, so on March 23rd, the Victoria Mayor announced outdoor shelters (tent camping) in three parks. Due to limited ability to staff the parks, Topaz Park near Victoria’s northern boundary remained the only site.

Topaz Park behind fencing

THE FIRST VICTIM

The first victim was communication. Perhaps the mayor felt she was pressured into a decide-announce-defend position by the health authorities? The police chief got stuck in the middle as an emergency spokesperson. If homelessness was a regional issue, there was a deafening silence from neighbouring municipalities. Topaz Park neighbours were not involved or notified. Whose agenda was being served by punting the homeless hot potato north? The wealthier city residents to the south? The downtown business community? Was this a plan the mayor had all along?

The provincial health order had commitments to help vulnerable populations, but there was no plan in place to move people into the many vacant hotel rooms in this tourist city. Authorities knew they needed a safety plan or risk a repeat of a 2015 homeless protest and police actions. This time Victorians generously donated tents for the first of two encampments. Tents emerged two kilometers north at Topaz Park shortly after. In effect, there were now two hot potatoes.

Some of the homeless tents prior to relocation

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT AND OVERDOSE DEATHS

In the communication vacuum, neighbourhood activists emerged at the nearby Quadra Village Community Centre. The Board at the Centre and its neighbourhood action committee (NAC) wanted to know how to deal with what could be a permanent crime-ridden tent city in their park – one of the city’s largest. Alternatively, could better solutions be found? The federal and provincial governments were offering up money and their hands were forced to act by physical distancing.

I got involved with the NAC for my expertise in community and land use planning. The NAC needed to know how decisions were being made and if there was any way to influence the course of events, so we decided to try and break down some communication silos.

The first ally was the police chief, who was willing to attend a community Zoom meeting on April 9th. The chief brought camp organizers from the nonprofit Coalition to End Homelessness. The meeting revealed the initiative was understaffed and barely able to get sanitary and camp areas organized. Community members said they expected more. The overdose deaths of four people in the Topaz Park camp was discussed widely, as were police reports of increased property crime near the park. The situation got more media attention.

Security at one of the Topaz Park entrances

NAC members volunteered at Topaz Park and found that an assessment of the campers' needs was already done. It wasn’t complete, but work was underway to look at individuals’ needs instead of moving people in one group as ‘campers.’ Specific hotels or other locations could then be staffed with people to address mental health, drug addiction or other needs. Without such supports, the game of hot potato would return.

On Saturday, April 25, a press conference was called and a new provincial COVID order was made by Provincial authorities. The order moved homeless people into hotel rooms or other shelters by May 9, 2020, and camp areas would be cleared. In all locations, local government resources were too poor to effect change.

A second Quadra Village-Topaz Park community zoom meeting was held on April 29, 2020. Over half of the 67 registrants didn’t attend, perhaps believing the provincial actions would address the concerns. Provincial Housing and health officials, as well as local police attending the meeting, did not instill complete confidence, but they came with deeper pockets and a transition plan for campers.

ROOTS OF HOPE

The two reasons to have faith in the COVID homeless relocation come from previous commitments by the federal and provincial governments.

First, in 2016, the government of Canada gave support to a health-based harm reduction and Housing First approach to create an environment for stabilizing homeless people who were also involved with drug use.

Second, in 2017 BC Housing announced the Rapid Response to Homelessness (including modular housing) as an immediate response to the growing issue of homelessness across the Province. The magic of modular housing was that it could be constructed quickly, some projects in as little as three months.

Some homeless will relocate temporarily to the Victoria hockey arena
Photo J. Newall, Creative Commons

One key question remains about Victoria’s Topaz Park: Will we have faith in the system, or will we be looking at fields of mud and used needles by the time the winter rains return?

Part of this story will unfold by May 20, 2020. Only one modular housing project, now in development, has been slated for the Victoria region. A long term issue will be to secure land for modular and other Housing First units, which is a difficult task in a region with low land supply and high costs.

Has COVID helped spur more comprehensive action on the complex issues of homelessness in Victoria? Will economic, social, or political snags trip it up? Stay tuned… these are strange times!

"If you're going all city...don't be a toy"

Graffiti how-to section in Toronto bookstore

If you're going all city, don't shark or get buffed. Don't be a toy!"

That's not gang lingo, it belongs to a much bigger group: Graff writers!

Graffiti existed millenia before hip hop, street gangs, and Banksy. Napoleon's soldiers did it on ancient Egyptian ruins. Mao's hoards created the world's longest to stir China's Communist Revolution.  Today high art galleries feature it from Manhattan to London. Academy nominated films glorify it.

The past few months I've photographed an ever-so blurry line between street art and graff. Just consider the quality of design. How far is one design of wall graffiti in Hartford, CT from that of a mural in Victoria, BC?

A small stretch of wall graffiti in Hartford, Connecticut

A wall mural in Victoria, British Columbia

Graffiti is growing in cities around the world. On a recent trip to Toronto I found bookstores featuring graff history, how-to, and heroes.

Then I found a politically incorrect Mad TV version of taggers. It makes light of something that's not. But it is kind of funny. Enjoy.

Avoiding a Wire-esque nightmare - Part 2

One of my favorite quotes in The Wire is when a 16-year-old drug dealer points to a run-down apartment and says, "…this shit! This is ME, y'all. Right here!" I've heard real drug dealers say that.

Author Arthur C. Clarke once wrote the only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way into the impossible.

Unworkable neighborhoods demand a different future. Higher density housing may replace sprawling suburbs for reasons both environmental and economic. But too often we get old style house design and traditional apartment buildings. We get unmanaged and decrepit public housing that ends up as gang-breeding warehouses. Witness all-too-real neighborhoods in The Wire.

The Wire never won a major award and had modest ratings. Yet it's described as the greatest TV series ever made. Part of that is due to its bleak existential portrait and the warning it offers. Clearly, we need to venture into the impossible.

I recently saw just such a vision in Victoria BC - Fernwood Urban Village, an elegant and well designed development proposal for density co-housing.

FERNWOOD URBAN VILLAGE

Rendering of Fernwood Urban Village

Cohousing is resident-planned, owned and managed equity housing. When I contacted cohousing projects around Seattle, many had affordable rental units. Enough of those in our future and maybe we could eliminate public housing altogether!

Like most cohousing, Fernwood is pedestrian-oriented with common dining rooms, media rooms, and workshop. Residents own their private residence but the design "makes social interaction easy and integral to everyday life." Each unit has it's own kitchen but residents usually choose to share a few meals each week in the common house.

Unlike gated communities, resident-owners share co-housing design and management. Thus, residents learn problem-solving and collaborative decision-making skills for handling conflict later on.

Uplands cohousing, first in the UK

Municipalities rarely encourage or provide financial incentives for cohousing. That needs to change. We need to venture into the impossible.

Check out co-housing movements in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia.

Lower the drawbridge

Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC

The last blog got me thinking about cemeteries. With a little imagination, they can be a fascinating community asset.

Back in the 1990s I was asked to join a team of talented design colleagues to do a preliminary concept plan for the historic Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia. Thinking about my gardens-in-a-cemetery story last blog, Ross Bay brought all sorts of interesting innovations to mind – innovations that yield cause for optimism in spite of warnings from the fearful who auger catastrophe.

Ross Bay is one of Canada's most famous historic, and beautiful, cemeteries. Overlooking the glistening waves of the Georgia Straight and the snow capped Coastal Mountains of British Columbia, Ross Bay had persistent problems with gravestone vandalism.

The damage to Ross Bay Cemetery suggested to some we should control access to the property. We easily could have. 1st Generation CPTED tacticians often push people away with target hardening, fencing, and access controls.

Yet a cemetery is not a warehouse; it is a place for remembrance and reflection. So we developed a concept plan for the cemetery perimeter incorporating new memorial spaces into the design solution. We programmed a bike path and walking trail through vulnerable areas of the cemetery along with seating areas. We capitalized on the magnificence of large sprawling trees and proposed an elaborate pedestrian stairway linking walkers to the nearby beachfront.



Our view was not to shut people out. It was to attract people in – people to walk, bike, tour, and visit the cemetery to celebrate the lives of its inhabitants and the history it represents. Unfortunately the project wasn't built for various economic reasons. I'm told it is now underway. No matter. What matters is that this project, and the Indianapolis garden-cemetery, reinforces how innovation can make places interesting and safe.

With assets like cemeteries we should not raise the drawbridge. We should lower it.

Graffiti in Victoria BC - Beauty and the Beast

Victoria, British Columbia

Here's a shocker that shouldn't shock. But it does.

Have you noticed how some of the most beautiful cities in the world suffer from some of the worst graffiti? And have you noticed how waves of ugly graffiti signal undercurrents of social problems throughout a city?

I recently spent time in Victoria, BC...certainly one of the most beautiful smaller urban places anywhere. It has historic architecture, lively street life, interesting districts like Chinatown the Inner Harbour, and a thriving tourist business. Yet in recent years it has been hit with thousands of graffiti tags. I drove from one end of the city to the other and no places were spared.

This was not the political or street art expression you see in some places. It was felt-marker pen scribbles and spray paint vandalizing post boxes, telephone poles, street signs and benches. The city is launching a campaign to tackle it this summer. They have their work cut out for them.

PAINT-OUTS?

Let's hope their prevention strategies don't obsess on graffiti paint-outs as the sole answer. Paint-outs are a beautification tactic from 1st Generation CPTED and they have a role. But they only go half-way. Kind of like eating cake without the icing. Yuk.

Prevention strategies must also integrate the neighbourhood-building strategies of 2nd Generation CPTED like those we teach in SafeGrowth.

Years ago I recall visiting another beautiful city - Sydney, Australia - where I saw the same kind of blight. It was just prior to the 2000 Olympics and I did media interviews commenting on the profusion of graffiti. I asked what kind of face Sydney was presenting to the world. It did get front page coverage but I doubt it triggered any specific action.

However, there was a significant anti-graffiti clean-up program prior to the Olympics and according to accounts, it made a big difference. I'll be in Sydney this winter and am anxious to see if those efforts were sustained 2nd gen CPTED strategies or whether they faded into a shade of spray paint.

CAN VICTORIA LEARN FROM SYDNEY?

That is where Victoria finds itself today. Each year the Canadian government releases urban crime statistics showing how Victoria is in the Top Ten worst for Canadian cities that size (about 250,000). Victoria's Crime Rates

While it is still a beautiful and magnificent city, like everywhere it has problems. Clearly, graffiti is not the among the most serious.

But graffiti does signal a particular cue about a place. It sends a message. Some graffiti might be artistic expression. But more positive community-designed street murals can do the same thing. For example, check this out see article on Mural programs

Next month the International CPTED Association launches a new service: CPTED Workbooks for Designers and Community Developers. The inaugural issue will be on Tackling Graffiti. Watch for it International CPTED Association website

Also, check out Steven Woolerich's latest Target Crime blog called "Taking it to the Streets". see Steven's Target Crime blog