Memorial honours people who died in the ‘Surrey Strip’ homeless camp

The strip was shut down last year and its residents were moved to other locations in Surrey.

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Wanda Stopa released balloons into the air and wrote her friend’s names on a white banner during Sunday’s memorial for those who died while living on the notorious “Surrey Strip.”

More than 150 people occupied the homeless camp along 135 A Street when it was dismantled in 2018. The residents were hard-hit by the opioid crisis, with over 550 overdoses in 2017.

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Stopa was a resident of the camp. For her, Sunday was an opportunity to honour the friends she has lost.

“I didn’t want them to be forgotten,” she says. “Once I let my balloons go, that’s my final goodbye to my friends that have passed away. It helps too because it’s my way of saying goodbye to them and releasing them.”

Stopa says the memorial offered her closure. She didn’t attend funeral services for her friends because their families wouldn’t allow it.

“I never got to say a proper goodbye to them,” she says. “Their families don’t want to admit that they were residents of 135A Street. This way we get to acknowledge them.”

After the tent city was dismantled, many residents were relocated to temporary modular housing. Stopa was not, instead she says she was “shuffled from shelter to shelter.” Now she lives in a tent that she says she will soon be forced to move by bylaw enforcement officers.

“The homeless problem in Surrey isn’t solved and it’s not going away. It’s growing,” Stopa says. “There are still tons of people out there fighting every day to survive.”

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There were 602 homeless people in Surrey in 2017, according to the regional homeless count. That number was up from 403 in 2014.

The memorial was held at Surrey’s Grosvenor Road Park, and was organized by the Alliance Against Displacement and Anti-Police Power Surrey.

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