Earlier today (Thursday) the City of Prince George announced City Council had given the order to remove the Millennium Park encampment on the corner of 1st avenue and George Street on September 9th.
In a release, they said the encampment is a “serious safety [concern] for both responders and occupants of the park as the result of increased density.”
The provincial government signed a memorandum of understanding with the city earlier in the summer that formalized their commitment to support unhoused people in Prince George, but there was not much in the way of understanding when it came to this decision.
Soon after the city made their statement, a response was issued by Ravi Kalhon, the Minister of Housing, who said he was “disappointed to learn of Prince George council’s decision to move forward with the decampment of people who are sheltering at Millennium Park without adequate indoor shelter options.”
You can find his full statement here.
My PG Now spoke with three members of City Council – Trudy Klassen, Kyle Sampson, and Cori Ramsay – about the decision to remove the Millennium Park encampment as well as its occupants.
“I had hoped we would have more time, to give more time to the province to get their things together,” Klassen said. “There was a real sense of urgency for safety… I’ve heard of at least one fire there… It is simply too unsafe to allow Millennium Park to be there because it is too crowded.”
She continued, saying “Like the mayor said, the explosion downtown was a tipping point. The urgency of that event, and knowing how incredibly dangerous that was – if that had happened an hour later there would have been many more people in the area – that brought a new sense of urgency.”
“One of the primary jurisdictions of a municipality is public safety,” Sampson said. “Safety is number one. That encampment is just not safe for the residents who stay there, the businesses that surround it, the residents surrounding it, and for first responders who cannot access that extremely dense location.”
“I have been calling for months to have this encampment de-camped, and it is frankly past its time. It needs to happen,” he said.
“The situation has deteriorated significantly,” Ramsay said. “We received reports from RCMP, PG Fire Rescue, and City Frontline workers indicating very serious safety concerns for occupants living there, as well as first responders as a result of the increased density.”
Under the Parks & Open Space Bylaw, Moccasin Flats is the only legal spot for people to temporarily shelter overnight.
Once Millennium Park is removed it is safe to assume that many people who were sheltering there will pack in to Moccasin Flats just down the road.
“It is very likely,” Klassen said. “For those folks who do end up at Moccasin Flats, I feel better about them being there than I do about Millennium Park.”
She said this was mainly due to the ease of access first responders have because of the road that runs through the encampment.
Both Sampson and Ramsay echoed that sentiment.
“[Moccasin Flats] is safer for the surrounding community, it is not an ideal situation – absolutely. My long-term goal to get that encampment taken down as well, but right now it is safer for the folks who would be residing there,” Sampson said.
“It is my hope that these folks turn to BC Housing, there is housing available,” he added. “BC Housing continues to tell us they have housing, they have shelter space, they have options available and they continue to bring more options. What those are is not always clear to us, that is a separate entity, but BC Housing stresses that they have resources available.”
Kahlon’s statement disagrees with what Sampson said, saying council has made this decision “in the absence of appropriate resources.”
Looking at the negative response from Kahlon to their decision, Ramsay said she was “a little surprised by the statement.”
“Last count we heard from BC Housing is that there was adequate shelter space available for the number of unhoused individuals living at Millennium Park,” she said.
“The urgency that council felt… was not the same urgency that the province had,” Klassen said. “We are so close to the need here in Prince George that we understand the urgency more than perhaps the province does. For our part, we feel Millennium Park needs to be taken down before something catastrophic happens there.”
“We have been asking the province for years for support and help in providing their jurisdictional obligations in our community. We need help,” Sampson said, adding providing housing and metal health supports are both outside of the city’s jurisdiction – both are provincial responsibilities.
“But the City of Prince George is a fantastic partner. We are the first at the table saying ‘what can we do to help you provide your responsibilities in our community,'” he said, using the newly opened complex care housing unit down the street from the encampment as an example.
“There are two more phases that have yet to be built, we don’t know when construction is starting. That has been years, we need that to happen. The city, we did our part. We purchased and prepped the land, now we need BC Housing, Northern Health and the Provincial Government to step up and fulfil their obligations,” he said. “Seeing a response like we have from the province, it is disappointing.”
Perhaps the most alarming part of Kahlon’s statement read “We had offered Prince George new resources like dedicated encampment response staff and deployment of temporary housing units to the community. Despite that, council has chosen not to access those resources to assist people living in Millennium Park to move indoors and to move unilaterally with this decampment.”
None of the three members of Council were familiar with this offer.
“As far as I am aware, we were taking advantage of everything the province was offering, we were just mismatched in the timing,” Klassen said.
“I was shocked to hear of these resources, I am hoping something got lost in translation but I am really confused reading today’s message,” Ramsay said. “I think council is going to have to have another conversation, because this really does come as quite a shock.”
“The resources the ministry speaks to, I haven’t seen offered to the city. It does not mean they are not available, and if they are, we need them. Please bring them,” Sampson said. “We need all the resources we can get to help people. We are asking for those resources, not turning them away.”
My PG Now will be speaking with Kahlon tomorrow morning, and have reached out for comment from Mayor Simon Yu.
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