Homeless Survival Struggles
Over the years, Red Braid has organized nearly a dozen tent cities in as many communities. We believe tent cities have a dual character – as survival spaces in a dangerous world where homeless people have half the average life expectancy of the general Canadian population, and also as spaces of political transformation where homeless working class and Indigenous people can realize their collective political agency. Out of these spaces, political leaders emerge with visions that transcend their immediate conditions. In 2019, our years of organizing alongside unhoused leaders crystallized in the formation of the June 8th Poor People’s Network, which stretches throughout British Columbia, uniting poor people’s struggles and making revolutionary politics relevant to unhoused people.
Updates and Events
Sudden mass evictions of supportive housing building in Maple Ridge
At noon on July 27th, three residents of one of the Coast Mental Health-run supportive housing buildings in Maple Ridge were surprised with sheriffs at their doors and a moving truck outside.
Strathcona Tent City residents to speak out against new anti-“camping” Parks Board Bylaw
The residents of Kennedy Trudeau (K.T.) tent city and their supporters denounce the proposed amendment to the Parks Control Bylaw regarding temporary shelter in parks. Residents challenge the anti-poor rhetoric, the homeless containment strategy, and demand permanent, adequate housing now, not the increased policing and normalization of homelessness.
Strathcona Park tent city residents respond to provincial encampment guidelines, demand an end to displacement and return of unceded land
Residents of Camp K.T. tent city in Strathcona Park call for all three levels of government to prioritize safe permanent housing for all over government sanctioned tent cities, an end to the cycle of displacement through laws and by-laws that criminalize poverty, and repatriation of unceded Indigenous land.
City of Surrey orders tent city residents off empty lot, back to alleys and doorways
On the morning of Wednesday June 24th, which is welfare cheque issue day, Surrey Bylaw officers returned to Whalley World Tent City and delivered a threatening eviction notice.
“We’re taking back the Strip!” Surrey’s newest tent city resists displacement
Residents named the new tent city "Whalley World" in honour of the low-income neighbourhood that the City of Surrey is trying to rebrand and sell off to developers. People are tired of watching luxury condo towers go up while their friends are evicted to the streets, and they are fighting back!
“We don’t need more condos”: Whalley residents rally against gentrification
On Saturday June 20th, residents of Whalley are rallying on 135A Street, the former site of the tent city known as the Surrey Strip, against Mayor McCallum’s plan to push low-income residents out of the neighbourhood and hand Whalley over to the rich.