A look inside CRAB Park: The 20-person tent city running off of a single outlet this cold snap

As snow began to fall Friday, people living out of tents at Vancouver’s CRAB Park were doing whatever they could to stay warm, utilizing space heaters, ovens and other electrical appliances hooked up to a single outlet.

The outlet, located at the base of a pole of a wooden pavilion normally used to provide shade and display local Indigenous artwork, is now the main source of power for a tent city of 20 or so residents.

A network of extension cables winds its way to various parts of the encampment, including a tent used to house and distribute donations, a tent for warming and another tent for cooking.

David Bradbury and John Jewkes have volunteered to cook three meals a day for fellow residents, whose numbers have fallen from a peak of 100 amid the recent cold snap. Their kitchen includes an oven, coffee maker, lights, radio, and speakers all plugged into a power strip.

“I started with just a frying pan on the road over there,” said Bradbury, a former Kitimat resident who found himself without a place to live after his wife’s death a year ago.

The 61-year-old said volunteering as a camp cook at CRAB Park has helped renew his sense of purpose.

“There’s a lot of hugs that go around here. I hug everyone.”

However, living outdoors has come with challenges with the arrival of snow.

Between frying up salami for lunch service Friday afternoon, residents crowded into the makeshift kitchen, hovering their hands above ignited stove burners for warmth.

“We’ve been asking the park board for amenities, including more and closer washrooms, showers, better hand washing and running water facilities, an emergency phone, and improved electrical access,” said Fiona York, a housing advocate for the Downtown Eastside.

“All of these improve not just quality of life and living conditions, but well-being.”

The city installed two steel washroom stalls in a far corner of the park in July.

“There it goes again,” said Jewkes, as the lights in the kitchen tent dim and flicker. The former ironworker, from Mission, makes a visit to the park’s sole outlet every few hours to reset its overloaded circuit breaker.

Some residents have resorted to “jimmy-rigging” electrical cables in park lamp posts to try to source additional electricity, he said. Donated propane tanks also fuel the camp’s 24-hour space heaters and its lone kitchen stove.

Jewkes doesn’t have any fire safety concerns, even though Vancouver fire chief Karen Fry ordered the city to remove 150 tents between Abbott Street and Gore Avenue on Hastings Street in mid-August.

“I’ve put out five fires at the camp so far,” he said, pointing to the kitchen’s fire extinguisher.

Jewkes held up a Vancouver Fire Rescue Service badge that he claims to have been given for his volunteer services at the camp.

“We attend a lot of medical and fire calls in the Hastings Street corridor, including at CRAB Park,” said assistant fire chief Kane Morishita.

“We as a fire department don’t really have a take. The encampment is strictly a city-managed thing — we just respond to calls.”

Although police usually won’t enter the encampment unless called for service, the city’s park rangers make regular visits.

“All these guys have been in the kitchen. They know what we’re doing, that we are legally allowed to be here,” said Jewkes.

Residents have been able to occupy CRAB Park since a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in January that the quality of the housing offered has to be considered before people living in public parks are relocated.

Vancouver recognizes that “demand is greater than available housing, and people are living in unsafe conditions on the street,” the city said in an email Friday.

“As winter approaches, the city’s primary concern is ensuring people sheltering outdoors along East Hastings Street, in CRAB Park and other parts of the city can come inside to ensure their safety and well-being.”

In partnership with B.C. Housing, Vancouver has deployed an additional 151 winter shelter beds, 88 extreme weather beds and 100 warming centre spaces.

The office of B.C. Premier David Eby, who is promising an encampment plan including a co-ordinated social service approach to address homelessness in the DTES, would not disclose his plans for CRAB Park on Friday.

His office said that since July, B.C. has opened made more than 159 additional single-room occupancy spaces for people experiencing homelessness in the Downtown Eastside, “including people living at CRAB Park and Hastings Street.”

“Dozens more single-room occupancy hotel spaces are being renovated and will come online in the coming weeks.”

sgrochowski@postmedia.com

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