A heavy police presence surrounded Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on April 5 morning as the City of Vancouver shut down the site to illegal campers who had been set up on East Hastings Street for months.
Dozens of Vancouver police officers in cruisers, on motorcycles and bicycles, blocked off numerous streets and intersections starting at around 8:50 a.m.
Members of the Hastings street community and their supporters held a press conference to raise concerns after a City of Vancouver document discussing decampment plans was leaked.
The Vancouver Police Department deployed officers to the area.
The city says it requested support from police to bring the East Hastings encampment to a close "following a steady deterioration in public safety and an increase in fires in the area and the encampment zone."
"Today, city staff, with assistance from members of the VPD, will be working to remove all remaining entrenched tents and structures in the area, approximately 80 in total. The VPD will be present to ensure staff safety as they do their work and enforce the streets and traffic bylaw as necessary," the city said in a statement.
According to the city, at the encampment's height last summer, there were 180 tents and similar structures. The city has removed 600 since August, staff say. They estimate 85 were still there; some shelters house multiple people.
The VPD says it will provide frequent updates on Twitter as the "work continues."
Insp. Dale Weidman told Glacier Media, while on scene, that the city is leading the decampment.
"So what they're doing is they're taking down all the tents and the structures and the police are here to make sure everything goes safe and keep things secure," says Weidman.
Mickee Sinclair, who lives in the Downtown Eastside, said he is concerned with the decreasing numbers of single-room occupancy shelters in the downtown core.
Eric Olson, 46, watched as city workers dismantled a tent at 142 East Hastings on Wednesday morning.
“They’re bullies,” he said, adding campers knew the action was coming. “What a waste of cops. What did the homeless ever do to cops?”
