The city now has the court ruling it needs to close the Moccasin Flats encampment.
Barring a constitutional challenge, that means permanent eviction for all residents of the camp including Bel Johnny, who has made the Flats his home on the eastern fringe of downtown Prince George since the summer of 2021.
Bel, as he will be referred to in this story, has been there since the start, when the pandemic closed normally accessible shelter spaces and dozens of people without homes decided living outdoors under a makeshift shelter exposed to the elements beat waiting in line for a spot in a shelter.
The 60-year-old native of Dease Lake says while it appears the end of the troubled history of Moccasin Flats appears to be near, closing the camp is not going to fix the problem. In fact, he says a permanent closure will only make it worse for the city. He predicts crime will increase, illicit drug use will continue unchecked and street people will be more at risk of dying of exposure.
“This problem ain’t going away, the city can ignore it as long as they want, ” said Bel. “There’s more young people being on the street and I think there will be a lot more deaths because a lot of people are not equipped to be on the street, with their stuff being stolen and taken every other day. They’re down to tennis shoes in the wintertime and that’s pretty tough to try to make it on the street.
“One is too many and I know of two people who froze to death downtown last year because they didn’t have a place to go. That breaks my heart when I hear stuff like that. Nobody should have to go through that at a young age, particularly in our time. It’s never recorded, really, they’re just swept under the rug like they never existed. They’re human beings like everybody else.”
On Friday, Aug. 15, the City of Prince George announced the BC Supreme Court has approved its application to permanently close down Moccasin Flats, also known as the Lower Patricia Boulevard encampment.
In his decision made the day before, Justice Bruce Elwood ruled the city has the right to close the encampment to all but 20 residents who were living there as of July 2. That came after failed attempts by the city to close the area to permanent occupancy in 2021 and 2022.
On Feb. 27, the city served Bel and four other Moccasin Flats residents with an eviction notice and that led to a three-day hearing in Prince George court, July 2-4, with Bel named as the defendant.
Elwood determined the city is entitled to close Moccasin Flats to full-time sheltering , however, the 20 longterm residents subject to the injunction can apply to the court for a constitutional exemption to remain at the encampment.
Once the city has the authority it needs to prevent permanent sheltering, overnight campers will be forced to dismantle their tents each morning from the designated overnight spots and will move off the property. If they refuse, they face being issued a ticket by a bylaw officer and Bel says that will only complicate the issue.
“It makes people out to be criminals when they have to move on,” he said. “A lot of people can’t afford a ticket and when they can’t pay that they become a criminal in the eyes of the law. Where are they supposed to go?
“For people to have to set up and dismantle a camp every day, that’s not good for anyone’s spirit. It’s a sense of belonging is what they need.”
He’s convinced an outdoor space like Moccasin Flats could work if it was operated by the authorities as a campground facility with hydro power, running water, toilets and basic amenities.
“Folks wouldn’t have to go into town to be harassed or be a nuisance,” he said. “People just want to have a peaceful place to be, away from the street talk and the street life. I still get people come down to visit, away from the street, so they can have a breather.”
Failing to address the problems that stem from homelessness and increasing poverty will carry dire consequences that Bel says will become noticeable in the city, especially in the downtown core.
“The homeless population is getting younger and they’re getting more violent as far as banding together and doing the survival thing at the expense of other people, just to get by,” said Bel.
“If the city is willing to actually deal with it right now that would help the city and definitely keep the crime down. It’s kind of sad because (with the encampment closed) people won’t have a place to go, so they’ll do whatever they can to get out of the cold and if that means break and enter, they’ll do it. If they’re alone and cold on the streets they’ll do what they have to.
“The majority of these folks hit the streets without a record, but give them at least four of six months and they’ll all have a record and then the eyes of the law treat them a lot different.”
The court documents of Elwood’s judgement alleges Bel has been operating a chop shop at his shelter space where stolen bicycles are stripped down and altered so they can’t be traced, but he says he’s no thief. He’s collected bikes others threw in dumpsters or left behind at other sites because the tires went flat and denied there was anything criminal behind his motive to store those bikes and parts at his camp.
Bel learned BC Housing expects to have a place for him to rent in the next two weeks and he was told by a city bylaw officer Monday morning if he accepts that offer he would then have seven days to remove his belongings from his campsite at Moccasin Flats.
“They asked me what it would take to vacate and I told them if they can find a rented home piece of property I’ll gladly move and go there,” he said. “I’ll still do what I can, because it’s going to get bad.
“Even as couples, people are having a hard time trying to make their rent, they’re living from one paycheque to another.”
In the fall of 2021, the city applied to have the encampments at Moccasin Flats and Millennium Park at First Avenue and George Street closed. The closure application for Moccasin Flats was dismissed by BC Supreme Court justice Christopher Hinkson, who ruled the city did not have other suitable housing and daytime facilities for the encampment residents and they were allowed to stay in a judgment which became known as the Stewart Order (Stewart Conditions).
In November 2021, the city helped move many of the Moccasin Flats residents to the Knights Inn supportive housing facility operated by the Native Friendship Centre. City crews then proceeded to use heavy equipment to dismantle some if the campsites and discarded belongings under the mistaken belief the sites had been abandoned.
The city went back to court in January 2022 to argue its case to close Moccasin Flats, with Bel and other unknown persons listed as the defendant. In a precedent-setting ruling Justice Simon Coval dismissed the city’s application. Coval rued the city failed to fulfill the Stewart Conditions and breached the Stewart Order when it dismantled the campsites.
As a result, the city was forced to initiate a process to compensate camp residents who had lost their possessions when their campsites were dismantled. The city renewed its focus on upholding the Stewart Conditions and city staff worked with the provincial government and BC Housing on a joint project to build a 42-unit low-barrier supportive housing facility on Third Avenue, which opened in January 2025.
“When I realized what was actually happening I had to do something about it and the lawyers approached me for them to represent me as client and I told them yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking, but I didn’t know who or where to turn to,” said Bel.
“I’d like to work with the city and bylaw folks; they just have to get away from that mentality that it’s us and them. A lot of these folks are ashamed to say that they needed help or had no place to get help and they become a wanted criminal for petty crimes.”
Bel has turned down previous offers of supportive housing and has remained at the site, where he’s helped dozens of newcomers, providing them what they need to set up their own temporary shelters.
“They had nowhere else to go but right here,” he said. “Some of them didn’t have jackets and one girl I had to give her shoes that were too big.”
Moccasin Flats occupies a stretch of land at the base of the hill at Lower Patricia Boulevard that starts at 498 Ottawa St., and continues eastward to the end of Third Avenue.
Bel was one of the original inhabitants of the property and has lived there since the spring of 2021. The encampment had more than 100 residents at its height in the summer of 2023 and it became a trouble spot for RCMP, Prince George Fire Rescue and city bylaw officers.
Shelter fires, opioid overdoses and violent crime incidents, one of which resulted in the shooting death of a man in the adjacent warming centre on Jan. 1, 2024, drew frequent visits from frontline first responders and social services workers.
The city has increased its supportive housing space substantially over the past couple years but Bel says the one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work everybody. Facilities are not secure, the rooms are too small for their belongings, most don’t allow couples in the rooms and pets are mostly forbidden.
Originally from Dease Lake, Bel moved to Prince George for a construction job after working in Quesnel building the West Fraser Centre arena. He had steady employment and was renting an apartment until 2021, when he lost his job as a handyman in Prince George during the lockdowns when tenant concerns about the second wave of COVID-19 infections stopped him from doing his work.
With no income and the price of rent mostly unaffordable, Bel set up camp on the north side of the Nechako River until he was forced to move the following spring on the order of a bylaw enforcement officer, who suggested he could move to the strip of city-owned land along Patricia Boulevard where he now lives.
If he does leave, he says he won’t miss the violence and frequent shelter fires that plagued Moccasin Flats, especially when there were dozens of occupants. But wherever he does end up living he vows to continue advocating for the homeless community.
He knows he could have left Moccasin Flats long ago but decided he needed to be there to help those who needed it most and he’s long been considered the go-to person for new arrivals to the camp. He’s been there to save them from freezing to death, whether that’s at his campfire or when he’s on his bike pulling a wagon with a propane heater to warm someone laying on a concrete slab.
“I’ve been kind of fortunate, I chose to do what I’m doing here,” he said. “I told myself I’m going to give myself five years to do this and in that five years I don’t know how many people got housed, but if I had to, I could walk away satisfied with how many people did get housed.”
During his five years at the Flats, Bel has been shot at with a bow and arrow and pellet gun from the top of the hill and he says people sometimes throw rocks from the berm that land on the roof of his tent.
He says his immediate concern is for his 10-month-old dog Talhtan. Over the past three weeks someone has been using a squeaky toy to lure his dog up the hill of the embankment that separates Moccasin Flats from the adjacent housing subdivision. Bel had to go to the city animal control shelter and pay $160 to have his German Shepherd released and he says he’ll have to do that again to get him back.
“He’s my guard dog, he keeps people away from here early in the morning,” he said. “The first time I got him out of the pound last week he was losing his hair, just stressing out, and now he’s gone again. He’s pretty attached to me, ever since he was born.”
Once his own living situation is settled, Bel plans to go back to construction work for at least a couple more years until he retires and he says he’ll renew his ticket that allows him to be paid a journeyman’s wage.
Bel was meeting with Vancouver lawyer Casey St. Germain through a virtual conference Monday afternoon to discuss his options. He’s prepared to take that fight for the rights of the homeless as far as he can, even if their appeal requires the involvement of a federal court. All he wants is a permanent solution that works for everybody.
“I’m not going to give up the fight, I just have to find the right people to help me do that,” Bel said. “I always told myself I’ll be in it for the long haul. I’m just trying to do the proper thing for folks who don’t know how to do it.
“This is all new waters, nobody’s really done this before so there’s no script to follow, no general direction. As far as I’m concerned, everybody needs to get involved because we’re all Canadian citizens here for us not to live up to the reputation Canada does have, that’s just being a hypocrite, really.”
