Earlier this week, park rangers confiscated coolers from a camper at Crab Park in Vancouver during the warmer phases of the heatwave.
Videos of the seizures were shared on X from homeless advocates around the city.
Fiona York, one of the advocates who has decried park rangers’ actions, told Daily Hive that the seizures were “dehumanizing, disingenuous, and an unnecessary application of bylaws and regulations that are themselves arbitrary and tyrannical.”
Stop the Sweeps Vancouver said two coolers were taken from a resident’s tent.
This morning the @ParkBoard sent rangers to CRAB Park. They raided a resident’s tent. They took two coolers. During a heatwave. From unhoused people.
What level of cartoonish villainy does this have to reach? pic.twitter.com/sL4P4thgb5
— Stop the Sweeps Vancouver (@stopsweepsvan) July 9, 2024
We asked the City of Vancouver about the rationale behind what some are calling a “cooler raid.”
“The coolers were part of excessive belongings being kept outside of a tent site which is in contravention of the parks bylaw and General Manager’s guidelines for the Designated Area,” the Vancouver Park Board told Daily Hive in a statement.
“Our considerable experience with encampments had demonstrated that without regular and consistent follow-up there is confusion about the guidelines and belongings amass very quickly, so Rangers typically seek to work with people in the Designated Area to prioritize their belongings.”
The statement added that the tent’s occupant didn’t respond to rangers discussing which items the camper wanted to prioritize keeping.
York believes there were a hundred other ways to address the situation “if it needed to be addressed at all.”
“I highly doubt that every single bylaw and regulation is implemented with equal inhumanity and minutiae in every other park and in every other situation,” York continued.
“This is an over-zealous and dangerous implementation that feels targeted.”
The Vancouver Park Board statement said that if the person wanted the coolers back, the rangers could return them quickly. However, York said it’s hard and sometimes impossible for these campers to contact the City.
“We’ve had cases where the item is in the ranger’s truck, and the owner of the item is right there asking for it, but the rangers won’t give it back. They just say to call 311,” she said.
The Vancouver Park Board said it is trying to support the campers through the heatwave.
“Rangers are actively taking steps to ensure people sheltering in CRAB Park are safe during the current heat event. They have dropped off cases of bottled water for people sheltering in the park. In addition, the spray park is activated at CRAB Park, and a recently installed hydrant provides a ready supply of cold drinking water.”
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