Encampment-Turned-Occupation Continues

Though their tents are largely gone, unhoused campers have set up sleeping bags on the grassy patch behind United Church on the Green — where they continue to distribute and receive food and other aid, as an activist crew keeps up their protest of homeless encampment sweeps.

That’s the latest with the encampment-turned-occupation, organized by the Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT) and other partner organizations, on the Upper Green. 

One week after 20 tents popped up for the night to protest government clearings of encampments and to support setting aside land for people with nowhere else to go, many of those same unhoused activists and their allies remain, but mostly not in tents.

On Tuesday afternoon, the area was piled with sleeping bags, blankets, bags, clothes — all belonging to the campers. 

Some of these supplies were donations from community members, which could be found at a central hub in the occupation: a group of tables forming a square with a large pile of blankets in the middle. Volunteers helped serve food and warm drinks to the unhoused campers. Among them was U‑ACT organizer Mark Colville.

According to Colville, the current aims of the occupation are to serve as a nightly rescue mission to gather those on the Green who might need their services and to stay until the city designates another place for them to go, emphasizing the upcoming weather conditions as a catalyst for change.

“We can’t go through another winter losing people to the weather,” Colville said. ​“We’ve had too many people die.”

Colville clarified that the tents going down last week was a ​“concession,” something that they do not plan to continue making. Though he did not specify when the tents on the Green would come back up, he was clear that the group will not budge.

“The first thing is to seize the space and to stay here. The second thing is to stay until our demands are met,” Colville said.

One of the campers still in that area of the Green on Tuesday was Strongbow Lone Eagle, who sat on a chair facing toward the sun, his eyes wincing as the light washed over his body. He said he was released from prison on good behavior earlier this month, and that he’s been at the occupation since last Wednesday. 

“I was sleeping out here way before the encampment,” Lone Eagle said. ​“Billy [Bromage, of U‑ACT] came and woke me up politely and asked, which I respect, if I mind if they pitch a couple of tents. I said, ​‘Go ahead, it’s a free country.’”

Lone Eagle said he was supposed to be connected to transitional housing services, as well as medications to treat his arthritis and traumatic brain injury. But he said that there was ​“no longer a program” at the Grand Avenue location where he was instructed to go. Additionally, he said he was released the day after his disability payment date, and now must wait until next month to receive his check. In the meantime, he’s sleeping out on the Green and is thankful for the services offered by the organizers.

Velma George, the city homelessness services coordinator, told the Independent that outreach workers have been making their stops at the Green daily. According to George, outreach workers have noticed that services are not being taken or that there is no one there to take their services. Some outreach workers have told George that they did not encounter anyone who was homeless, instead seeing students and activists. She also noted that the city’s non-cop crisis response team, COMPASS, alongside the police, were out there throughout the weekend. But, again, people refused these services, she said.

“We continue to have outreach go out, because it’s part of the routine for the outreach team to go out to the Green,” George said.

Lone Eagle and Colville both said they hadn’t seen any service workers around since last Thursday morning, though they have spotted police. Both noted that the police have not interfered with their occupation.