A petition on change.org has been started to remove Camp Namegans campers from the Goldstream Provincial Park Campground.
Homeless inhabitants who were occupying the tent city in Saanich, which they named Camp Namegans, were removed from Regina Park near Uptown early Tuesday morning.
They tried to move to Rudd Park that afternoon with the help of the Together Against Poverty Society, a Victoria-based legal advocacy group that rented U-Haul trucks to help move their belongings, but Camp Namegans residents were denied access to the park by local police.
Instead, they made their way over to Goldstream Park in Langford, where they are scheduled to stay for the next two weeks.
The campers took advantage of a right given to them by the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, which allows anyone identified as a Person With Disabilities (PWD) – which could include mental or physical disabilities – two weeks of paid for camping time.
READ MORE: Victoria’s roving tent city moves to Goldstream campground
A petition started by a woman named Shannon Burnside is written to MP Randall Garrison, Langford Mayor Stew Young and MP Alistair MacGregor, asking for inhabitants to be removed from the provincial park grounds.
“To date, in the other locations they’ve inhabited, there have been issues with them using drugs, destroying property, theft, making explosives, leaving human waste in public areas, fights, etc.”
Burnside proceeds to imagine future headlines of children playing with syringes in the park, and notes that the risks of letting them stay includes damage to the old growth forest and a risk to public safety.
READ MORE: Woman arrested as Saanich Police tape off Hwy 17 tent city
Pacifica Housing executive director Dean Fortin said heading to Goldstream was a creative approach for people who are suffering from a lot of trauma.
“It’s important to note that of all the people we’ve assessed, they are almost all middle to high acuity, which means they’re highly vulnerable individuals,” Fortin said, adding they’ve assessed more than 100 people at Regina Park to help get them into affordable or supportive housing units.
“Most of them are PWD, and I bring that up because it’s a case [from some opponents] that tenters are all advocates and privileged and are doing this as a protest… But we are there, we know almost all of them are homeless.”
Fortin said that having two weeks to feel more settled would be really helpful for the vulnerable population, which has been forced to pack up and leave several times. He added that so far, Pacifica has been able to provide 10 of the Camp Namegans residents with housing.
Burnside’s petition has received two signatures as of Wednesday afternoon and is aiming for 100.
