The fight for housing justice never rests, and it certainly never sleeps in.
Downtown commuters travelling along Pandora Avenue past Victoria City Hall were likely to have heard music and seen signs held proudly by a small group of housing advocates Friday morning (April 25). As the morning went on and the group moved into Centennial Square, up to 60 people attended the rally.
Housing advocate Kym A. Hines called it the "Rush Hour Rally," an event organized by the Living/Lived Experience of Homelessness Network and the Victoria Tenants Union, who gathered to call on the City of Victoria and the provincial government to take new action in pursuing housing justice.
"This event here is about the ongoing housing crisis. Things are not getting better; things are getting worse," said Quin Jones, one of the lead organizers with the Victoria Tenants Union.
"The local municipal government and the B.C. government know what the solutions are, but they don't have the courage to implement them."
The rally was spurred in particular by a recent bylaw passed by Victoria council limiting sheltering in parks.
"I'm primarily concerned today with the amendments the city has made to its parks regulation bylaw, with no consultation with unhoused communities," said Caolan Barr, an organizer with Stop the Sweeps Vic.
In 2015, the city permitted sheltering in any city park other than Bastion Square. By the end of 2023, the number of parks closed to sheltering went from one to 22.
The new bylaw came into effect on April 17 and was the centre of a lawsuit against the City of Victoria for several months. It leaves 34 parks available for overnight sheltering, only five of which have washroom facilities. It also prevents sheltering in Vic West and Irving parks, which were at the centre of the lawsuit due to their size and proximity to downtown.
"The city ratified a new regulation that gives the police and bylaw officers more power to criminalize and displace people on the streets and impound their belongings. We see this as the exact opposite approach that we need. We need more meaningful transformation and social justice, rather than increased policing," said Barr.
"Our approach, rather than funding police, is human rights-centred and works with communities themselves. The number one thing the city has to do before making any sweeping changes like the parks regulation bylaw is consult the community. They need to ask the community what it needs."
Barr continued, explaining that when Stop the Sweeps surveyed unhoused people, they found people frequently expressed a need for more outdoor sheltering spaces, more access to washrooms and more sheltering spaces close to the services they depend on.
Others were inspired to participate due to their own struggles to find affordable housing.
"I don't have stable housing," said Nicole Elliott, who has struggled to find low-income housing.
"I'm looking for places here. I'm hopeful about something coming up that's subsidized, but nothing is so far. I have a place for a couple of months, but then after that, I don't know."
Elliott said she wants to see the city take a new approach to housing.
"Leaving the policy up to the market doesn't make room for the affordable housing that we need. There needs to be more pressure and accountability to ensure that there is affordable housing instead of just leaving it."
A number of other housing advocacy and social justice groups attended the rally throughout the morning, including representatives from the Backpack Project and Neighbours Supporting Unhoused Neighbours.
"We need more social housing. We need housing of all sorts — for seniors, for Indigenous people, for students, for young people. We need more housing, and I hope that people driving by will see that we're all connected to each other and we need support," said Niki Ottosen, a representative from the Backpack Project, who expressed optimism that rallies like this one could inspire change.
"There are new people entering into homelessness each month because they can't afford housing here. [The city] is really dropping the ball on this. So I think the more people see us out here, the more people organize and band together, the more we can demand basic human rights and housing for all."
