The number of tents in the 900-block of Pandora has dwindled, but the goal of clearing an entrenched encampment from the area — which has become a symbol for the persistent problem of addiction and homelessness in the capital region — remains elusive.
Dozens of people and a smattering of tents can be seen on most nights on that section of the Pandora Avenue boulevard, despite months-long efforts by social-service providers, the City of Victoria and the province to move people off the street.
Victoria city spokesperson Colleen Mycroft said in a statement that bylaw officers are still regularly removing structures that have been erected on Pandora’s 900-block in violation of city bylaws.
She said the city’s bylaw officers recorded finding seven to 21 structures in the block during their regular visits in December.
Our Place CEO Julian Daly said the situation has not changed much since the city began installing fences around the boulevard in the 900-block of Pandora in late October to prevent camping in the area.
Daly said Our Place added 20 more nightly shelter beds in addition to its existing 34 beds at 919 Pandora Ave. last summer as part of the effort to move people off Pandora by the end of the year, and they continue to be full every night.
And with the majority of the sidewalk fenced off indefinitely, tents have begun sprouting up in the 800- and 1000- block of Pandora as well as adjacent streets.
Downtown neighbourhood liaison Coun. Dave Thompson said after the fences went up on Pandora, he started getting more calls from all across downtown — from those living and working on Yates, Fort, Douglas, and Mason and Balmoral streets — about people who had been on Pandora migrating to different streets.
On Thursday morning, bylaw officers and police were out enforcing no-camping bylaws on Douglas and Yates streets.
Thompson said the issue of outdoor sheltering — the result of government cuts to social housing and “decades of neglect” — suddenly became very visible in 2020 when pandemic measures cut the number of available shelter spaces by half.
“Half of the folks that were in those shelters were required to leave because of the social-distancing rules, and it all became visible,” Thompson said. “It was out of sight, out of mind, and [then] the pandemic came along.”
Long-simmering concerns about the Pandora encampment came to a head last July after the assault and swarming of a paramedic who was responding to a call on the block.
Paramedics and firefighters subsequently refused to attend to calls in the area without police escort. For nine weeks, Victoria police increased patrols and sweeps on the block, at a cost of $80,000 in overtime.
Representatives of sa国际传媒 Housing, the city, police, Island Health and service providers began meeting every week to figure out what to do about the encampment on Pandora, as well as another encampment in Rock Bay’s Ellice Street.
Starting in September, sa国际传媒 Housing and the city contracted outreach workers employed by Pacifica Housing to try and connect with people living on the block with the intent of getting them off the streets and into shelter beds.
sa国际传媒 Housing spokesperson Laura McLeod said as of Nov. 14, about half of roughly 60 people living on Pandora had accepted an offer to stay in a shelter space after they were contacted by provincial and community outreach workers. (Those statistics were the most recent the agency could provide, McLeod said in a statement.)
Pacifica Housing CEO Carolina Ibarra said in an interview that outreach teams often found that people living on Pandora would refuse shelter offers because of the conditions attached.
Initially, there were shelter spaces reserved specifically for those living on Pandora — basically all the new 72 shelter spaces that were announced by Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon last August, she said.
But the shelters often had rules such as no pets, no couples and no substance use, and many were only open at night, said Ibarra. As a result, people remain on the streets during the day, making it look as if little progress has been made.
“I know that the community is really frustrated because they’re being told that everyone’s offered housing,” she said. “Everyone was offered shelter. Not everybody took us up on it.”
Pacifica is aware of three individuals who were previously living on Pandora who secured housing in supportive sites, as well as another person who has found a home in a complex-care facility, Ibarra said.
Pacifica outreach workers still go out twice a week to locate people and offer them housing, but shelter spaces are no longer being held for Pandora residents, she said.
Ibarra said she’s aware of an increase in homeless people taking shelter throughout downtown, in storefronts and alleyways as well as the encampment on Ellice Street.
The three parks where overnight sheltering is still permitted in Victoria — Oaklands, Pemberton and Gonzales — have also seen more use, she said.
“I think we will need to set up a new schedule and a new plan moving forward, because obviously people still need to be housed,” she said.
Due to the constraints of a “slow and clunky” system, it’s hard to get a sense of how many shelter spaces or housing units are available on any given night in Victoria, Ibarra said.
The provincial platform used by sa国际传媒 Housing and service providers to keep track of people they are helping get off the street isn’t set up for real-time updates, she said.
Mycroft said the city does not track the number of people sheltering outdoors on the 900-block of Pandora.
McLeod, of sa国际传媒 Housing, said it is challenging to get an exact number of people living on the block because there are also people who are housed or staying in shelters who come to the block to access services.
There are 396 shelter spaces available in the capital region available for people in need, she said.
‘An entire ecosystem of facilities’ needed
Last spring, Our Place surveyed people living on the 900-block of Pandora, asking what it would take to get people off the street.
The organization’s street outreach team found that all 77 people they spoke to in April and May said they wanted to leave the block and get housed.
Many reported struggling with mental illness, addiction and poor physical health.
Daly told the sa国际传媒 that the initiative to house everyone who was living on the 900-block of Pandora was folded into the joint response from the city and sa国际传媒 Housing that was set up following the assault on the paramedic.
Thompson said that while Our Place may have publicly stated its target was to take people off the block by the end of 2024, that was never the goal of the joint response from the city and the province.
“The city didn’t actually make any promises that homelessness would come to an end by the end of 2024,” he said. “I think the reality is that we’re not going to be able to set a date and say we’re going to end homelessness by this date.”
Thompson said there is a “very, very small portion of the street population” that is preying on people and should be in prison. But everyone else needs spaces in affordable housing, supportive housing or complex care, or detox treatment, recovery houses and mental-health facilities that don’t currently exist, he said.
“It’s going to take years to build all that stuff,” he said. “We’re going to have to build an entire ecosystem of facilities and hire like thousands and thousands of people who are going to provide the services in order to undo this problem that has built up over the decades.
“We’re not going to be able to snap our fingers and make this go away, even if the federal, provincial and municipal governments are all working as hard as they can — it’s going to take years.”
Before that’s done, it’ll be a game of “whack-a-mole” where people are being moved around, Thompson said.
“There’s an ongoing pipeline of people into homelessness and street life. Yes, there’s pipelines out [of homelessness], but we need to address both the pipelines in and pipelines out,” he said, adding that the high cost of housing is a key reason why people are homeless.
The growing substance use and addictions epidemic needs to be addressed as well, he said.
Bernie Pauly, a researcher at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and a nursing professor at the University of Victoria, said while the majority of toxic-drug deaths in sa国际传媒 happen to people who have stable housing, homeless people are among those who are most vulnerable to overdose deaths and hospitalizations.
Pauly disagrees with what she characterized as a “bylaw-first” approach in Victoria, arguing that it has contributed to the overdose death crisis raging in the province.
“It’s important to remember that you’re putting people’s health at risk during displacement. It’s increased overdose risk and increased health complications because of disrupting access to supplies, medications, services,” she said. “It’s the exact opposite of what we want to do to help someone get off the street.”
Paul said there needs to be more housing options for people relying on the $500 housing subsidy from the province to make rent, and 24-7 sheltering locations while that housing is being built.
She said she still clearly remembers how she felt on May 16, 2024, when bylaw officers and police swept through the 900-block of Pandora, clearing the area of people, tents and other belongings.
The dozens of tents and structures that were usually set up on the block were reduced to three.
Staff at Our Place called it one of the biggest shake-ups the block had ever seen in a day.
“This was really burned into my mind,” Pauly said. “When we displace people, we are pushing them further into homelessness as opposed to showing them a pathway out.”
It had just been 10 days since Our Place announced its plan to get everyone off the block by the end of the year.
That move by the city, which came as a surprise to staff at Our Place, broke the trust that had formed between Our Place and people sheltering on the street, Pauly said.
She said the national protocol on encampments in sa国际传媒, a set of guidelines on how to approach homeless encampments — developed by Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, in 2020 — calls on authorities to work with people to find solutions to meet their needs.
Repeated street sweeps are the exact opposite of that, she said, adding the current approach is not evidence-based, causes harm and isn’t going to end homelessness.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to spend tax dollars on solutions that aren’t effective,” Pauly said.
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