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Culture


RSS FeedsAs Vancouver moves to clear Oppenheimer Park of homeless people, a man struggles to find his place
(The Star Fashion & Style)

 
 

24 august 2019 13:35:05

 
As Vancouver moves to clear Oppenheimer Park of homeless people, a man struggles to find his place
(The Star Fashion & Style)
 


VANCOUVER—A heavy rain beats a staccato rhythm on the overdose prevention site’s tented roof. Inside, Reece Draayers sparks up a cigarette and chats with a friend loading a tiny rock into a glass pipe.The conversation ranges from family and friendship, to Draayers’ Indigenous Wuikinuxv ancestry on B.C.’s central coast, before finally settling on the issue that’s been taking up space in everyone’s minds here at Oppenheimer Park: the impending closure of the long-standing homeless encampment.It’s Wednesday morning, and a deadline looms. The city said an increase in fires, violence and drug dealing at the site has forced it to close the tent city. On Monday, Vancouver’s parks board told the roughly 200 campers here they had three days to pack up and leave.“The city needs to handle this with love, with open arms,” Draayers says. “Everyone here is somebody’s someone.”Draayers spends hours every day at the overdose prevention site, which everyone here simply calls the OPS tent. He leaves only to get some food, pick up his social assistance check or sleep. His only home at the moment is a space in a tent a few feet away that he shares with local activist Chrissy Brett. The two are among a handful of people who staff the OPS tent 24 hours a day, keeping watch as their friends and neighbours use drugs amid the worst overdose crisis in Vancouver’s history.Star Vancouver followed Draayers as he joined the many campers vying for space in one of the 140 units of subsidized housing and shelter beds the city said are available through non-profit providers.The day before, on Tuesday morning, the scene across the street at the Atira Women’s Resource Society intake office is tense. Nerves are frayed. Intake workers sit with prospective clients, trying to help people find a place to go after the camp closes. Atira’s director Janice Abbott told Star Vancouver her organization was in the ...


 
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