I was thinking that it might be interesting to see where homeless people, when left to their own devices and without laws to hold them back, actually do set up temporary shelters before the City of Victoria goes ahead with enacting a new bylaw regulating tenting activity on public land.
If we jump right ahead and draft new bylaws, we don't even get a chance to see how things would be without the new bylaws. The City of Victoria is afraid that the city will be out of control if it doesn't severely restrict tenting activity. This fear-borne attitude is the disease of the modern mind, which worries that if it does not control life, then life will be out of control.
It is my experience that life tends to take very good care of itself when the calculating mind leaves it to its own devices. Things have a way of finding their way home, as surely as salmon detect their home-stream by the smell of it, even though they may travel thousands of miles out to sea. We might as a City have enough faith in the natural function of things to see where homeless people make their homes when laws don't prohibit them from doing so--at least for a few weeks. And then, after such a trial period, we could SEE what regulations need to be made.
And we might, as homeless people wanting or needing to shelter ourselves in public spaces, follow our natural instincts, and not get caught up in making a political game out of where we sleep tonight. I think our natural instincts might lead us to set up tidy, respectful shelters in quiet, out of the way places, keeping in mind the sensitivities of our neighbours.
Many of us are frustrated with because the City that claims to represent us and our neighbours don't want us around, and keep doing everything they can to make us go away. And so we push the envelope and assert our presence all the more. But there is an opening here for us to ACT NATURALLY, to forget these words "enemy" or "opponent," "Crown" or "City,"and just do the work of Being.
I am not denying that there are powerful forces of control at work wanting to block natural being at every turn---forces at work in our own minds as much as in the political and social structures we move in. But if we define ourselves by the martial tactics of those control-forces, we lose the chance to experience authentic life---that is, life as it is, defined by our connection to the force of Life from moment to firey moment, not some pseudo-life defined by the forces of control that delude us into thinking that the "enemy" (whether the enemy is, from our perspective, the "system" or the protesters of the system) can EVER take anything away from the raw, infinitely powerful, never-not-there FORCE of life itself. Raw life is terrifying, make no mistake--but there's nothing to be afraid of.
And to come back to basic tactical considerations---let us not forget that all the usual laws that apply to all citizens are still in place, and are still there to enable the police to enforce public order if they need to. So violence and drugs are still illegal, theft is still illegal, mischief is still illegal; we still have bylaws regulating everything from noise levels to littering to cooking and lighting candles in public spaces.
The only difference in light if the October 14th court ruling is that homeless people can set up tents in parks---and are not confined to mere blankets, sleeping bags, and tarp wrappings. The court ruling by no means allows for the kind of free for all the City seems to be afraid will occur. The appearance of a Tent City in Beacon Hill park right after the original ruling back in October helped to fuel the public fear that parks are about to be invaded by homeless people. So did the encampments in Centennial square. Those encampments were necessary to bring to light the fact that the city didn't handle the ruling in a legal manner---and achieved their goal of encouraging the City to draft a new bylaw.
Unfortunately, the camps had the side effect of making it seem to the public that homeless tenters would be in their face all the time if the City didn't regulate tenting activity. I think
the vast majority of homeless people would gravitate to out-of-the-way locations, for the sake of their privacy, and that we would hardly notice them. And neighbours always have the option of approaching tenters directly if there is a concern about tenting location. We forget in this mess of bylaws and police and courts that neighbours can and do work out arrangements between themselves all the time.
The police don't have to be called in every time one neighbour wants
to build a fence and another doesn't. Homeless tenters are neighbours too, and despite all the hype, they can be very approachable. If not, then a concerned neighbour can always call the cops if there is a suspicion of unhealthy or dangerous behaviour, as is the case with all dealings with neighbours.
I doubt that the bylaw proposed a couple of days ago (which would restrict tenting to the hours between 7 and 7) would hold up to a constitutional challenge. And beyond that, I think it artificially restricts the activities that homeless people need to engage in to protect themselves. That said, a function as natural and inevitable as sleeping will happen when and where Life needs it to, quite independently of any of our bylaws.
I say, let it be for a few weeks, and then see.
preferring harmony to peace,
Kristen Woodruff.
P.S. I look forward to seeing many of you at the show tomorrow night---8 p.m. at the Victoria Event Centre (doors open at 7 p.m.)
