Abandoned encampments raise environmental concerns and highlight need for housing solutions

Abandoned encampments, and the garbage and waste left behind, were a topic of discussion during Wednesday night’s environment committee meeting, which also highlighted the need for housing solutions in the city.

John Templeton, president of the Stoney Creek Environment Committee (SCEC), presented to the city committee, sharing his concerns about abandoned encampments along the creek.

Stoney Creek runs from the top of Burnaby Mountain into the Brunette River. The SCEC works to protect and preserve wildlife in and around the creek.

Templeton said he recently came across a dozen abandoned housing encampments in the area south of Lougheed Highway and Government Road that left behind large amounts of garbage. He also provided an example of an encampment that had a fire set outside of it.

Templeton noted that the cleanup involved in clearing garbage from these spaces can take a very long time.

“The response time is very, very slow. And to clean up the one where the fire was with previous occupants took almost three years,” he said.

The garbage, he said, can be found near the creek bed, which poses a threat to wildlife and their habitat.

According to Templeton, there have been more delays in clearing abandoned encampments on the city’s part following the death of Const. Shaelyn Yang, who was fatally stabbed while attending a call at Burnaby’s Broadview Park, near Canada Way and Boundary Road, in October 2022.

Yang, a member of the Burnaby RCMP’s mental health and outreach team, was partnered with a city parks staff member and had been called to the park to check on a person camping in a tent there.

“The current situation of doing nothing since the RCMP officer lost her life, the city staff won’t touch it, and I can’t blame them. But unless we find a positive solution, I fear that the green space in Burnaby is going to end up turning into what Hastings and Main is in Vancouver, and I really don’t think it’s in the interest of anyone in the community to have that,” he said.

“I know a lot of people will probably not want the city to be seen as coming down hard on people that may be less fortunate, but if you don’t spare the rod, you spoil the child, and I believe the overall enjoyment from this city, it should be there for everyone to enjoy and feel safe … rather than these individuals who create a no-go area.”

Coun. Joe Keithley, who chairs the city’s environment committee, acknowledged that the “parameters about approaching people who have encampments have changed,” following Yang’s death. He also noted that this matter speaks to larger issues around housing—or lack thereof— in the city.

“I think obviously, people are living outdoors because they don’t have anywhere to go. We have to find some way to help these people [and] get them somewhere to go,” he said.

Carol-Ann Flanagan, with the Burnaby Society to End Homelessness, echoed this sentiment.

“I think one solution is … affordable housing … and some shelter space or temporary space,” she said in an interview with the Beacon.

“Stigma doesn’t help and fear… isn’t going to solve the problem,” she added.

Flanagan said that this winter’s conditions have been “horrible,” leading more unhoused people to seek shelter, whether it be in designated shelter spaces or temporary encampments they make for themselves.

There are two overnight shelters that operate in Burnaby when the temperature dips below zero, and extreme weather responses have been activated, run by the Lookout Society.

From the 1st to the 15th of every month, there are about 40 shelter spaces available at the Neighbourhood Church (formerly the Southside Church) at 7135 Walker Ave. From the 15th to the 30th, about 20 spaces are available at Westminster Bible Chapel at 7540 6th St.

In a previous interview with the Beacon, Flanagan noted that the availability of overnight shelter space in Burnaby is far from adequate to accommodate the city’s unhoused population. The city also does not have a permanent warming shelter.

As for the encampments near Stoney Creek, Flanagan said she’s aware of one person who currently is camped in the area (Templeton also mentioned in his address to the environment committee that he is aware of one occupied encampment).

Flanagan added that she does not see Burnaby “becoming an encampment area similar to what they have on Hastings.”

“If anybody has concerns if they see a homeless person, I think their best recourse is to get in touch with us or Progressive Housing, so we can send an outreach worker to see if we can find them a space to live,” she said.

During the meeting, Mark Sloat, a City of Burnaby environment planner, said the city is developing a new “integrated” and “empathetic” approach in regard to encampments.

“Rather than have a more piecemeal, ad-hoc approach, we’d like to have a more integrated approach to these issues,” he said, adding that it will have city departments work together on the matter.

“If you could picture a team in the future that could hopefully deal with these things it would involve police, it would involve mental health staff, Progressive Housing… in addition to engineering, parks, and license [departments] as well.”

Sloat said the city is looking to have this policy established by the end of March.

Flanagan said solutions that make people feel safe are “a given.”

“The people who live on the streets need to feel safe and the people who live in homes need to feel safe,” she said.