Seven Oaks Magazine.

Lily Loncar is an activist with the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA). Recently, she has been involved with efforts to establish a "tent city," or temporary shelter for the homeless, in one of the city's open green spaces. Loncar discusses the issue of homelessness in Vancouver with Seven Oaks.

1. What were the aims of the "tent city," which was part of protests against government cuts on April 1?

We wanted to create a small village, and we did do it. We already had these little houses for the village - to show that give us a space, and we can create small little housing. The second point was to shame the provincial government for cutting social housing.

Well, the police drove by and saw us, and they called the police at the demonstration. And they realized that we were going to set up a "tent city," and actually, we already had. All we had to do was move the people in there. But we were stopped by the police.

3. You came, on Saturday, to the AGM of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), with a petition. What were you asking for?

It's because of the city bylaw that the police moved in there, and were able to stop us on Thursday. We drafted a recommendation that we're hoping to bring forward to city council at their meeting, on Tuesday afternoon, Since most of the council are COPE councillors, and the mayor is a COPE mayor, we thought we'd go to the meeting and get as many COPE members as possible to sign the petition, and present it at council.

We haven't got a total count yet, but at least about 800 signatures, probably more.

5. Are there other cities that you look to that have opened up green space to the homeless?

Yes. In Portland, Oregon, city council actually passed a motion, because there are over 1,500 homeless people in Portland. And a group of homeless people basically came up with this plan to build an excellent tent city. They're calling it "Dignity Village." They showed council the plans, told them what they were going to do, and council gave them a piece of land.

6. What do you think are the long-term solutions to the housing crisis in Canada?

Well, shelters are not a long-term solution; they're not any kind of solution at all. They're a way to get people off the street and the sidewalk, where it's cold and damp and wet. Our demand is that the province build at least 1,200 units of social housing a year. That's what it would take to prevent people living on the street.

7. Recently, I heard the observation that this was going to be the "summer of protest" in Vancouver and B.C. because of all the cuts. What do you think about that?

Well, yes, I don't want to call it a "tent city." I want to call it a protest camp. The whole point of it is to get together collectively and create these villages. Even just having one large one would be good, it would become the vocal point for shaming the provincial and federal governments into building, and putting money into, social housing . . . and we're not going to stop doing this until the government does.