Message candidates in North Cowichan and Duncan
Dear mayors, councillors and candidates,
We are a local collective who works to connect housed and unhoused neighbours in order to strengthen our community. You may remember us from when we headed up the initiative to keep the warming centre open for an extra month back in the spring. Keeping it open for that short time really made a difference for a good number of people. Some were even able to move straight into White Road and those who didn’t have housing had time to work on getting themselves better set up for heading back onto the streets. We appreciate that you listened to the need and responded.
We are writing today to express our continued support for the Beverly Street encampment area, and the garbage pick up and porta potty available there. We are also concerned though about the conditions that will develop there in the coming months as we head into the wetter colder seasons. Last winter we witnessed people struggling extra hard to stay dry given that the marsh flooded many of the sites and every site was very muddy and dank.
We are also concerned about the amount of money and time spent to displace people from Lewis St. It seems that both the RCMP and North Cowichan bylaw are down there almost daily sending people to the swamp area. Since the sanctioned Beverly St encampment area is already packed, more and more people are having to move deeper and deeper into the swamp as they get displaced from other areas. This is extremely dangerous for people living in the swamp. The money and energy spent on displacing people to these soon-to-flood areas could be allocated to sheltering solutions that actually improve people’s conditions such as dry camping sites with improved amenities like hand washing and drinking water stations.
We are asking you to commit to work towards the following:
- To continue to allow continue supporting the choice to live in the Beverly Street encampment area complete with porta potties and garbage pick up willnot flood and is within walking distance of downtown Duncan seeing how displacement is completely destabilizing and drastically impacts people’s wellbeing
- To allocate an encampment area that is not in the swamp but is still close to (15 minute walk) from services at Warmland and the OPS so that people can choose to move to improved camping conditions
- To fund portapotties as well as handwashing and drinking water stations at encampment sites
- To confirm a location for a 24/7 warming centre within walking distance of downtown Duncan that will be ready for October 15th
- To allocate existing funds toward servicing designated encampments and toward find better housing options, instead of increasing bylaw budgets.
We understand these are extremely hot button issues, especially as the election looms, and we hope that you can continue to see the issue of homelessness as something all of us need to work together to solve. Many unhoused community members, friends and allies plan to vote next month and we all are hoping for a council that advocates for housing for all.
Thank you for your consideration,
CCCN