There’s a new resident at Moccasin Flats. A battered Class C motorhome has joined the fifth-wheel trailer and almost a dozen tents already there despite the freshly installed gates the City of Prince George and mayor and council hoped would keep large vehicles and new people out.
Regardless of how the BC Supreme Court rules in the city's latest bid to evict the people living on the strip of land along Lower Patricia Boulevard, the broader reality remains unchanged: if permanent, physical, legal and logistical solutions are not implemented, the site will continue its cycle of eviction and reoccupation.
And even if the city “wins” in court — if it is granted authority to clear the encampment and relocate its residents — we have to ask: where will those people go?
Despite the Atco trailer village at the end of Fourth Avenue, the Knights Inn, North Star Inn and two new facilities built on First Avenue, some people continue to choose tents. They are doing so not because there isn’t housing available, but because they don’t want to live in the available options.
Prince George has seen it before when the city shut down the encampment at Millennium Park. The park may have been fenced off, but the people who were camped out there didn’t disappear — they moved.
In Kamloops, Williams Lake and across our province, people experiencing homelessness are setting up in parks, greenbelts, back alleys and residential neighbourhoods. The reality we are seeing elsewhere is likely what will happen here.
And then, rather than being at a centralized site that outreach workers, police and emergency services can monitor and respond to, people will be scattered. The pressure on frontline services and first responders goes up, not down.
Clearing Moccasin Flats without preparing for what comes next is simply pushing the issue into the shadows, where it’s harder to track and harder to treat.
Smarter, more strategic action is needed — not just from Prince George, but from the province as well. Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Ravi Kahlon’s current approach, especially the buy-motels-and-convert-them model, is simply failing as we have reported and commented on in a previous editorial.
It's time for the province and Mental Health and Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside to come forward with a comprehensive plan to meet the complex needs of the homeless population.
That plan needs to include long-term access to mental health care and addiction treatment facilities and dedicated facilities for women and children across our province, but especially in the north. Only by helping people address their mental health and addictions challenges will we see a true reduction of people living in tents and temporary housing.
The city’s long-term credibility — and its ability to manage public land — depends on more than court victories or physical barriers. If the city wants to ensure that Moccasin Flats isn’t reoccupied, it needs to take a different approach.
One option is to completely reimagine Lower Patricia Boulevard. This could mean permanent supportive infrastructure or commercial redevelopment that makes ongoing occupation unlikely.
Light industrial land in Prince George is in high demand, even if it’s on the east side of Queensway. The city could re-zone the land and provide a permissive tax exemption to entice the private sector to develop the land.
Green space redevelopment? The land that represents Moccasin Flats has previously been envisioned as a connector between the downtown and the river front trail system.
Although ambitious and aspirational, if Millennium Park — which is to be sold to become a parking lot — is any guide, the city has little momentum or political will to reclaim former encampments for public use.
So, we’re left with this: unless the city acts boldly — legally, physically, and symbolically — Moccasin Flats will return. Maybe not immediately, maybe not in the same form, but the cycle will repeat.
Regardless of whether the city wins or loses in court, there’s no win for our community. It won’t solve the problem. Losing means the problem stays in the Flats. Winning means the problem relocates into our neighbourhoods.
For a true win we need the provincial government to step up and provide long-term mental health facilities along with addiction treatment and rehabilitation centres.
If not, the cycle will repeat and the problem will continue to grow.
