Oppenheimer Park Alive but Compromised

Located at Cordova and Dunlevy, Oppenheimer Park has become  a rallying ground for the those seeking shelter  and community by way of tents, tarps and temporary structures. Many prefer staying with their belongings and pets,  choosing not to use shelters. Shelters are a temporary solution to a long established and growing housing crisis in metro Vancouver, where real estate has become unaffordable making rents across the lower mainland soar. 

Shawna Taylor shares her perspective on the ever evolving situation at Oppenheimer park in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. 

With a big heart and open eyes Shawna  illustrates for us the community and the roots that keep her invested in the DTES. The Carnegie Community Center, the Street Thug Barbers and volunteering with Willie Wonky’s Roving Soup Kitchen are at the center of her connection to this community. She reminisces about  the good old days at Oppenheimer Park, before the housing crisis that flared up in 1986 for EXPO* and again for the 2010 Olympics. Now that gentrification has destabilized more people on welfare and people with mental and physical disabilities the concentration of services, addiction and policing in the area surrounding Oppenheimer park is swelling. Shawna offers her ideas for meeting  the housing  needs. Whether it be tiny houses with  shared infrastructure or repurposing the Buddhist temple on Hastings and Gore, she emphasizes that stability and dignity are crucial to recovery. Those that are traumatized and  addicted need homes, community and purpose.

For now, the city and the province have been able to house the many that were camped out. The province has identified 686 hotel and community centre spaces in Vancouver, and 324 hotel spaces in Victoria, in partnership with nonprofits and municipalities. The deadline for the transition was May 9, with a plan to move 15 to 20 people into accommodations per day. Once in the accommodations, people will have their own living space, as well as meals, laundry, washroom facilities, health-care services, addictions treatment and harm reduction, and storage for personal belongings. There will also be designated spaces for women.

Up until the 9th of May, Oppenheimer Park was alive with compromise. The park was an intersectional petri dish of good ideas and resilience, self defense and self care. It was a gathering place for community and survivors of trauma where dysfunction and coping techniques mingle and clash. Gone are baseball games between the police and the “thugs” 

At its height  the park became a ground for power games between the VPD, drug users and local gangs,  a place to get high and a place for some to die, on the unceded territory of the  Coast Salish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh. The root while the opioid and fentanyl overdose crisis continues to take lives.  

Back in September 2019  the parks board announced a new bylaw, an attempt to "provide a balance between providing access to parks for all in the community and the rights of all people to shelter." Full Figure Media will continue to watch and listen to the community as we evolve and share public space.