Build more housing or we will establish a tent city in the Tri-Cities.
That was the message from a group of protestors who crashed a Homelessness Task Group meeting Friday morning in Port Coquitlam, shouting "You talk, we die" and "Support homeless leadership."
"Homeless people are dying in the streets of the Tri-Cities," Alliance Against Displacement (ADD) organizer Isabel Krupp shouted at task group members, which included Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam MP Ron McKinnon and several city councillors. "[Homeless people] are taking this into their own hands, trying to set up a tent city, a space where they can be together and help each other survive so they are not dying."
Coquitlam RCMP and Port Coquitlam bylaw enforcement officers were already on the scene when people carrying placards began arriving. The protestors shouted slogans as they brushed past two bylaw officers posted outside the meeting and several people gave prepared speeches while task group members looked on and said nothing.
After a few minutes, ADD organizer Listen Chen said police had informed her that if protesters did not leave, they would be arrested for mischief and the group walked out without incident.
Outside the building, Chen told The Tri-City News that unless some meaningful action is taken to address the homeless issue, her group will take matters into its own hands.
"If they don't want a tent city, that is up to them," she said.
She added that ADD was invited into the community by local homeless people to organize and advocate for more housing in the Tri-Cities.
Andrew Merrill, Coquitlam's manager of community planning and a task group member, spoke with some of the protestors outside the committee room. He outlined the initiatives the city is undertaking to increase the amount of market and below-market rental housing but conceded that construction of the units is still years away.
As a municipal official, he noted that housing and health services fall under the purview of the provincial government along with organizations like BC Housing and Fraser Health.
"It is a little bit challenging as a local government because we don't build or operate local housing," he told The Tri-City News. "So I don't have any services or help the city of Coquitlam can provide them. We work with our government partners to look at long-range solutions but all those immediate solutions are the responsibility of the province."
This is the second time in the last month the Alliance Against Displacement has organized a protest in the Tri-Cities.
June 13, the group held a demonstration in front of the provincial court building on Mary Hill Road in PoCo before dozens of activists spilled out onto the street. They then marched from downtown PoCo carrying signs and snarling traffic all the way to the homeless shelter at 3030 Gordon Ave. in Coquitlam, where they attempted to set up what they called the "We Exist Tent City."
"Courts have found in the past that public land owners have an obligation to the public, to the public good more so than a private land owner," said Ivan Drury, an activist who had a strong hand in the creation the Anita Place tent city in Maple Ridge, during last month's demonstration. "This lot here is owned by the city of Coquitlam, so we believe that public interest is served by homeless people using that public property… and that police should not act to enforce trespass laws without seeking clarity from a court."
