The District of North Vancouver has evicted a man living in an illegal structure built into a precarious embankment in Mosquito Creek Park.
Staff have been aware of the unsanctioned structure for about a year but did not enforce an eviction until this week, after giving the man who was living there time and help to make other arrangements.
“A lot of organizations have been working together to try and connect this person to the appropriate supports and social services. That comes first in a case like this,” said Stephanie Smiley, district spokeswoman. “This is not simply removing a tent. This is this individual’s home. It’s got all his belongings. They were trying to be sensitive to that, and it’s quite a unique situation.”
When district staff considered removing the structure last fall, the weather turned bad and it became unsafe to attempt work on the sandy embankment with rain and snow coming down. Staff spoke with the man living there and made him aware of the risks posed by the slope, trees and branches, but decided to put off the eviction until the spring.
“The safety of the individual was really top of mind for staff and they needed to do everything and explore every avenue they could to make sure they were connecting him with all the available resources before these steps were taken. But eventually you get to a point where the risk of the slope and the situation itself are something you have to address,” Smiley said.
For the last two years, the structure was lived in by a man who goes by the name :Martin and his 10-year-old dog Pooch.
:Martin said he spent about $12,000 on materials for the shelter, which he lugged in and assembled himself over about three months in 2015. The structure included finished floors, insulated walls, a split level and a small wood stove with a three-inch stove pipe.
:Martin said he believed it was the smoke coming from his chimney that tipped staff off to his location.
Over the last two years, :Martin said he had worked in construction but spent most of his time studying self-improvement, yoga, meditation, contract law and grammar.
Now, :Martin says he will likely continue to sleep in a tent in the woods somewhere as he refuses to go to a homeless shelter or a tent city in the Downtown Eastside because he abstains from drugs and alcohol.
“I would never put my tent there. I will never go there. I don’t want to go there,” he said.
:Martin disagreed that he was at risk in the woods.
“I feel more secure and safe. I’m in the hill like this. If a tree falls, I’m protected here more than I would be if I was on flat land,” he said. “I feel more secure here than in the top of the Shangri-La.”
:Martin said he likely won’t attempt to build a structure on district land again because he doesn’t feel like dealing with the district anymore. And although he has savings, he doesn’t want to live in an apartment or vehicle.
“Everybody has their own life. But if I decide to detach myself of those material things and try to make it myself and think differently, there’s something wrong. There’s only something going wrong in society,” he said.
The site will likely need environmental remediation, Smiley said. “There has to be an assessment done. Slope stability is a real issue in this area. The structure itself needs to be inspected and the slope needs to be inspected too before they can decide on what next steps are. It’s a tricky spot.”
