Residents of East Vancouver RV encampment rally against eviction

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The same day the city told people living in RVs along a street in East Vancouver to leave, residents held a rally calling for a halt to the eviction and demanding more affordable housing.

Listen Chen is with the Red Braid Alliance, a group that helped organize the protest at Slocan Street and East 12th Avenue.

“Our message today is that if the city is serious about mitigating the worst impacts of the housing crisis, it must stop criminalizing people who live in vehicles and work with all levels of government to build quality social housing, in order to end the housing crisis by targeting its root causes.”

Related Article: East Vancouver RV encampment gets final eviction warning from City

Chen tells CityNews they have three requests.

“We’re asking the City of Vancouver to set a new enforcement priority of not enforcing bylaws against people who live in vehicles. That’s the bare minimum the city can do to not exacerbate the housing crisis,” she explains.

“In addition to that, the city should not be forcing people to be displaced just because they turned down as SRO’s or shelters, and instead should be working with the provincial government to build more social housing.”

And if the city continues to displace people in the area she says some of the people will refuse to leave.

“The city will have to use force to remove them,” she says.

“We’re also hoping that we can spark a broader movement of people who live in vehicles and are otherwise unhoused to fight back against the government’s normalization of the housing crisis.”