Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / Pattison Media / The Sweltzer Creek homeless encampment sits just a few steps away from the rising waters of the Chilliwack/Vedder River, prompting concerns that the rising waters will carry toxic debris and other stolen goods into the nearby waterway. The province has not stepped in to evict squatters at occupied homeless encampments on Crown land, only addressing abandoned homeless encampments. There are at least nine homeless camps east of the Tamihi Rapids bridge on Chilliwack Lake Road.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Sweltzer Creek homeless encampment

Rising waters likely to send debris from Chilliwack homeless camp into nearby river

May 6, 2023 | 12:04 PM

CHILLIWACK — Provincial inaction on occupied homeless encampments in and around Chilliwack is leading to unintended consequences.

As Chilliwack cleanup volunteer Ross Aikenhead pointed out this week, rising waters in the Chilliwack/Vedder River mean personal effects and other toxic debris from the Sweltzer Creek homeless camp will likely end up downstream.

“The Sweltzer camp is starting to flood and all the garbage and stolen property is in danger of being washed downstream,” Aikenhead said in an email to Fraser Valley Today this week. “The environment and the occupants are in jeopardy and never should have been there in the first place.”

The Sweltzer Creek homeless encampment is located just west of the Vedder Bridge and consists of two individuals usually on site, along with people coming and going, as if to signify ongoing drug activity.

“One of the people in the Sweltzer camp was happily smoking his crack pipe yesterday,” Aikenhead said.

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Open drug use is apparently tolerated in B.C., but law-abiding citizens need permission to consume things like alcohol in public spaces. As an example, Chilliwack City Council voted in April to allow seasonal alcohol consumption at Vedder Park for a roughly six-month period.

In addition to the Sweltzer Creek encampment on Crown land, Aikenhead estimates there are at least nine active homeless encampments east of the Tamihi Rapids bridge along Chilliwack Lake Road. Aikenhead says he’s talked to individuals living in these encampments who have told him they’re not about to leave. There are over a dozen RVs and trailers at occupied homeless encampments. The provincial government is not going into these encampments due to environmental, safety and human rights concerns.

“I’ve talked to most of the people who are occupying Crown land and they say there’s no way they will move into a shelter,” Aikenhead said earlier this year. “The actual outreach workers have said the same thing. The only thing that will solve the problems is enforcement, unfortunately. FLNR is refusing to do that because this isn’t a problem unique to the Chilliwack River Valley.”

Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment RCMP Superintendent Davy Lee alluded to a homeless encampment working group at the Chilliwack City Council meeting earlier this week. Supt. Lee says the group, formally known as the Chilliwack River Valley Homeless Encampment Stakeholders Working Group, is trying to address the ongoing homeless issue.

“The collaborative interagency approach of the Chilliwack River Valley Homeless Encampment Stakeholders Working Group continues to address the environmental, public safety and social welfare concerns in the Chilliwack River Valley,” Supt Lee said. “The recent announcement of $200,000 in new funding to the FVRD’s rural cleanup effort is a step in the right direction. We will continue to collaborate with stakeholders to find long-term solutions to this ongoing issue.”

It should be noted the $200,000 in funding from the provincial government is intended for the entire Fraser Valley Regional District, and not just the Chilliwack River Valley.

Aikenhead said the solution boils down to enforcement and little else.

“The long-term solution to the problem is to enforce the existing laws,” Aikenhead said.