Image: Derrick Kramer / Abandoned homeless camp in the Chilliwack River Valley.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack River Valley homeless camp

Homeless camp containing multiple abandoned vehicles located up Chilliwack Lake Road

Dec 17, 2025 | 7:56 AM

CHILLIWACK — Frustration doesn’t begin to fully describe what Chilliwack River Valley resident Derrick Kramer is feeling after yet another homeless camp containing abandoned vehicles and other effects was discovered along the Chilliwack Lake Road corridor.

Kramer posted on social media Tuesday (Dec. 16) that the camp in question is located across from the fish hatchery just off Chilliwack Lake Road. The encampment contains two recreational vehicles, a cube/panel van and other garbage.

“It’s destroyed, it’s abandoned,” Kramer told Fraser Valley Today Tuesday night during a phone interview. “There’s nothing left but garbage. It’s just gross.”

Image: Derrick Kramer / Abandoned homeless camp.

Just last month, Kramer, Ross Aikenhead and a couple other local guys tackled an abandoned homeless camp on Bench Forest Service Road where three vehicles had been torched and abandoned. Tow trucks had to be deployed because individuals cannot legally remove vehicles on their own. Volunteers weren’t paid for taking time out of their own schedule to do the job that some level of government should be theoretically addressing.

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Kramer says he plans to talk to a few people before trying to coordinate or arrange some kind of plan to eradicate the unsightly mess. He wonders why conservation officers and natural resource officers aren’t doing anything to try to at least deter camps like this.

Image: Derrick Kramer

“If it wasn’t for the volunteers, how disgusting would the Chilliwack River Valley be? It’s the conversation officers, it’s the RAPP line, it’s the forestry [personnel] that are not doing their part. If they’re not doing their part, why aren’t we getting paid? I’m not asking to get paid, but why are we not being funded?”

Sardis resident Ross Aikenhead says he reported camps like this to the RAPP (Report All Poachers and Polluters) hotline (1-877-952-RAPP) for years but nothing really materialized from all those phone calls. Kramer echoes those frustrations.

“Government doesn’t do anything about it because they don’t want to look bad,” Kramer said. “The other thing is, you have to tell these people that they’ll be illegally living in the bush, but keep it clean because I think most people in society don’t really care that you live in the bush. The most damaging part is, they make a mess. That’s the biggest part. Honestly, I don’t care if someone lives in the bush, as long as you keep your camp clean. It’s about the environment, about keeping it clean, because we all gotta live in this.”