Jeff Shantz
Policing produces homelessness. An overlooked aspect of
homelessness in Metro Vancouver has been the closure of trailer parks
(manufactured home parks) and evictions of their residents in Surrey. In the
last few years, at least 5 trailer parks have been evicted on King George
Boulevard between Whalley and Newton alone—hundreds of people made homeless. Police
and bylaw enforcement have propelled these closures and evictions—demonizing
and criminalizing residents (for drug use, sex work, etc.), imposing fines to
create the grounds for eviction.
Police and bylaw start by harassing people living in the
parks, and also harassing some of the park owners. The issues used are staples
of police stigmatization and criminalization—they say “well there’s drug trade
happening in that park” or “there’s sex work happening in that park” or “sex
workers are living in the park.” They use those excuses to ticket people who
are then faced with eviction. Owners are pushed to close the parks. The result
is gentrification as the former parks become development sites for higher end
condos and town houses that the evicted cannot afford to move into.
Ahead of the eviction of the Town and Country RV Park on
King George Boulevard Jas Rehal, manager of bylaw and licensing in Surrey, was open
about the targeting of residents for activities like drug use and sex work. He stated:
“The primary concern is … the hotbed of crime that’s happening in that trailer
park, illegal activity and the complete refusal to work with us. Rehal named
that so-called “criminal activity as a “combination of drugs and prostitution.”
He also said the RV park repeatedly stands in violation of a number of bylaws
and fire codes, and hosts “a lot of junk on the property they refuse to clean
up.”
According to Cpl. Scotty Schuman of the RCMP, police have
identified the property as a “high-risk
location.”
In his view, “That’s somewhere where public safety is
constantly an issue,” adding that drug-trafficking—allegedly involving methamphetamine,
cocaine, and marijuana is a problem for the cops and that “several warrants”
were executed at the property over the course of year. That simply confirms
that the RCMP have repeatedly targeted the park
Adds Rehal: “We cannot support keeping this business
operating—it’s causing too much of a negative situation in the neighbourhood. The
owner is not doing what the owner needs to do to make it safe…we were left with
no other option.” But closing the parks does not hurt the owners who sell the
lands.
The people who really have no other option are the residents
who have been evicted. This is policing created homelessness. It is another
example of police serving the interests of businesses and developers, not the
public safety of poor, working class people.
The police and bylaw work to evict people from lower cost
housing that is then gentrified making huge profits for developers, landowners,
and even the former park owners who make millions on the sales. And police and
bylaw can use the “work” they have done against the parks to justify a need for
increased budgets. The only ones who lose out are the residents. Even those who
are “re-housed” lose their connection to home, community, friends, and lose
their autonomy and independence.
