By Spencer Sterritt

Tale of Two Cities: Nanaimo vs. Discontent City court case underway

Jul 17, 2018 | 1:31 PM

NANAIMO — The court battle between the City of Nanaimo and a sprawling downtown homeless encampment is officially underway.

The public hearing aspect of an injunction filed against Discontent City at 1 Port Dr. started Tuesday morning in BC Supreme Court in Nanaimo.

City representative Troy DeSouza leaned heavily on the sordid details of the camp, which now houses roughly 200 people and is often visited by RCMP and paramedics.

“There are divisions in the camp and we’ve got affidavit material to speak to how there’s weapons in the camp,” DeSouza said. “There is a reasonable cause for concern that factions within tent city could descend into a Lord of the Flies scenario.” 

He claimed hundreds of calls were made to Nanaimo RCMP about the tent city in the two months since it opened, resulting in numerous arrests.

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Referencing an affidavit, DeSouza told court about 68-year-old retiree Lois McGuffie, who lives near Discontent City and had a run-in with alleged campers.

McGuffie apparently found several residents of Discontent City on her property and she asked them to leave. Instead, the campers allegedly became vulgar and angry, swearing at her and calling her a “fat old cow” and “f**king c*nt.”

Her affidavit continued to say she photographed several people stealing water from her tap who gave her the middle finger when she took their photo.

DeSouza told the Honourable Justice Ronald Skolrood the behaviour experienced by McGuffie is the type of disruption downtown residents now face every day.

However, Skolrood was skeptical. “I’m not sure you can draw a direct line between what one individual does away from tent city and equate that with being caused by or the fault of tent city,” he said.

“Sure I can,” DeSouza replied, saying those who reportedly harassed McGuffie wouldn’t be downtown if it weren’t for Discontent City.

“No, they’d be living on the street,” Skolrood fired back, prompting mutters of “That’s right” and “exactly” from the crowd of tent city supporters in the gallery.

When DeSouza said the City was working to provide more shelter space for the homeless, Skolrood said he was skeptical about how much help was being provided.

“There’s talk about 10s of beds (opening) and the numbers I’ve seen on affidavits talks about hundreds of homeless. So there seems to be a disconnect.”

DeSouza explained Skolrood shouldn’t necessarily trust info within the affidavits about how there’s hundreds of homeless people in Nanaimo.

However, a recent homeless count found a minimum of 325 people experiencing absolute homelessness with hundreds more couch surfing, living in cars or staying in tenuous living situations.

Shelters across Nanaimo are also at capacity all-year long. The extreme cold weather shelter was opened for the summer, providing 30 beds a night.

The capacity crisis is a significant part of the case for Discontent City. Tent city lawyer Noah Ross started his arguments on Tuesday and is expected to finish on Wednesday.

Check back to NanaimoNewsNOW for updates on the hearing and further details on the case presented by Ross. The hearing resumes at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit