"Don't Give Up!"
Kelowna Solidarity Statement from Vancouver's CRAB Park
Former residents of CRAB Park Tent City stand in solidarity with unhoused residents of Kelowna, and express concern and disgust at new “tent city policies” that reprehensibly mirror the violent crackdown and closure of CRAB Park at the exact same time last year.
On March 26, 2025, approximately 70 residents of the sanctioned camp in Kelowna were subjected to a secretive, sudden “clean-up” and forced removal to another area of the park.
On almost exactly the same date – March 25, 2024 – the three-year-old legal encampment at CRAB Park in Vancouver was violently closed for a loudly-touted “clean-up” of the site.
The carefully scripted and orchestrated decampment disguised as a clean-up forced residents to relocate to another section of the park while city staff trashed what remained of the tent city. During this time, the relocated residents were notified that only a handful of them would be able to return and remain at CRAB Park–due to a secretive list compiled by the Park Board that included only a number of residents who would be allowed to return to the site.
Those who were permitted to return to the site were faced with massively overblown rules and regulations enacted by the Park Board. The Park Board later staged a claim that the rules weren't being followed and closed the only designated daytime sheltering camp in Vancouver in fall 2024.
In Kelowna, former residents were only permitted to move to the other location if they signed a detailed “agreement” regulating their behaviour and possessions. Many residents found it highly coercive and undignified, disregarding their lived experience and human rights. The strict rules even limited the number of tarps they could use – just like at the pared-down, post “clean-up” CRAB Park encampment.
The former residents of CRAB Park Tent City stand in solidarity with the residents of the Kelowna encampment. "Hold your space and don't give up,” says Athena Pranteau, a former resident of CRAB Park Tent City. “Try to stay together, as numbers are strength. Don’t settle for anything less than you deserve.”
“It’s a coordinated strategy that cities are using. It’s intentional and thought out, and the rhetoric is identical,” says tent city supporter Fiona York. “State actors are using carefully selected keywords and self-directed promotion to disguise their true intentions, which is to evict the camps.”
Kelowna is following the same oppressive and destructive blueprint laid out by Vancouver's Park Board. In both Kelowna and CRAB Park camps, authoritarian restrictions were designed to dismantle and disrupt community, autonomy and safety. Residents are forced to make choices about their safety, or face eviction. In Kelowna, the majority did not sign the “agreement.” Therefore, they were scattered to more precarious living situations. At CRAB Park, the majority of residents were not permitted back to the camp after the “clean-up”, and many more were evicted and scattered from the new post-clean-up site. At least two people died shortly after the closure.
The state strategy and rhetoric also seek to dehumanize unhoused residents. In exchange for signing the coerced agreement, Kelowna residents were given a stamp to show they were allowed to shelter in the fenced-in area. In Vancouver, the Park Board briefly set up pens for people to live in, then backed down when outsiders and media caught on.
In Vancouver, five major encampments were closed in four years, with similar timing:
May 8, 2020 - Oppenheimer Park Tent City closed.
June 16, 2020 - CRAB Park parking lot tent city violently evicted.
April 30, 2021 - Strathcona Park Tent City closed.
April 7, 2023 - Hastings Street encampment violent eviction.
March 25, 2024 - CRAB Park Tent City “clean-up” and closure, followed by eviction on November 7, 2024.
The cyclical, cynical evictions continue despite milestone Tent City court cases such as Stewart (Prince George, 2021) and Bamberger (Vancouver, 2022). "Park Board General Manager Donnie Rosa was reprimanded for their disregard for unhoused people in 2022," says Pranteau. "Peaceful protest and gathering of families, people vulnerable and otherwise, is a fundamental right, and no evictions should take place."
But in Kelowna and Vancouver, and dozens of other cities, unhoused people continue to be scattered and dispersed to less safe locations, despite a housing crisis and thousands of people on housing “waitlists”. "Where are we supposed to go?" is the common refrain.
CRAB Park Tent City former residents urge Kelowna encampment residents to stay strong and know that they are not alone. While state actors are busy copying each other's violent tactics to erase encampments, dehumanize and derail autonomy, people with lived expertise have the power to hold each other up, stand in solidarity and speak truth to power.
