FRIDAY
TAKING AIM AT Q-SCHOOL
A B B O T S F O R D
DECEMBER 13, 2013
Abbotsford golfer Nick Taylor is going after valuable Web.com Tour exemptions in California this week A48
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ALEX BUTLER Abbotsford New
A four-walled plywood structure was erected overnight Wednesday for a homeles protest camp, just south of Jubilee Park in an adjacent city parking lot. The city has ordered the walls to be removed.
Homeless go behind walls City issues notice to have structure removed from parking lot near Jubilee Park Alex BUTLER Abbotsford News
Overnight on Wednesday, an eight-foothigh walled structure was erected in a parking lot on McCallum Road. The four-sided wooden enclosure, in a lot adjacent to Jubilee Park, became the new site of a homeless protest camp that spent more than 50 days in the city park. The structure was built with lumber donated by a private company, said a camp spokesman, who would not identify the business, nor who did the construction. On Thursday, the city issued a notice to take down the walls, which were built on city property without a permit, and those occupying it are trespassing under munici-
pal bylaws. Katherine Jeffcoatt, Abbotsford’s manager of communications, said the city ordered the structure to be removed by 6 p.m. Thursday, after The News press deadline. The original tent village, established in the park under organizer Barry Shantz, founder of the Abbotsford chapter of the BC/Yukon Drug War Survivors, was dismantled as the homeless moved into the new location. A teepee standing in Jubilee Park since the beginning of the protest was brought down Thursday morning, and will be reconstructed in the centre of new structure. Shantz said the walls help protect protesters from the elements and provide stabilization for the tents. He maintained
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it would be a physical impossibility to take down the structure by the city’s deadline. He said the camp’s recent move mimics the “Abbotsford shuffle,” which he describes as the city’s historical method of moving the homeless from one site to another – often only as far as 50 feet – without offering solutions. About 30 people have been living in the park, described by Shantz as a protest against the city and police for their treatment of the homeless. The city served the park camp with an eviction notice Nov. 25, calling for it to be cleared within 48 hours. After protesters did not leave, the municipality applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction for the homeless protesters
to clear out of the park. The notice of claim called for the court order to include all other city parks , as well as authorizing police to arrest and remove anyone not complying with the order. Jeffcoatt said the notice against the new structure will become part of the city’s application to the courts for an injunction, which will call for the structure and tents to be removed from parks and city land. That hearing proceeds Monday morning in the New Westminster courthouse. Shantz said efforts will be made by the protesters to clean up Jubilee Park. However, the city has closed the park and the adjacent lot to the public, citing safety concerns.
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