Instead of acting on public health advice, governments across the country have used COVID-19 as an excuse to continue their policies of forcible decampment. British Columbia’s clearance of Oppenheimer, Topaz and Pandora camps is a leading example.

The province justified the evacuations as necessary to prevent, respond to or alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 emergency. But as Pivot Legal Society, a leading advocate for housing rights, pointed out in a letter to the province’s lawyers:

“To date, neither your office, nor any other government entity, has explained how complete decampment and closure of these spaces achieves these ends in the midst of an ongoing housing crisis where many people will remain unsheltered outside and without access to housing.”

According to Pivot, the decampment was carried out in a traumatizing and oppressive manner. It caused some camp residents to flee to unknown locations, breaking connections with service providers. It heightened the risk of overdose by moving people into places where they had to use alone or by separating them from the harm reduction services available in the camps.

Source: It’s time for Canadian courts and governments to acknowledge that forcible displacement of homeless people is inhumane | rabble.ca