Article content continued

Police said four women and two men were arrested for breach of the peace, and one man was arrested for obstruction and resisting arrest.

Photo by Arlen Redekop / PNG

It was unclear where the remaining campers would go next.

“I’m going to go with the herd,” said camper A.C. Morris, adding he had spent the previous four months at the camp on Hastings.

“It’s not a bug-infested SRO,” Morris said of the camping life. “We all watch out for each other. We had a kitchen, we had water, coffee.”

Morris said a friend in the tent next to his was among those arrested when he refused to let park staff take down his tent.

“As long as we stick together, it’ll be harder and harder each day for them to get rid of us. Even if people close their eyes and turn their heads, that doesn’t mean we don’t exist.”

More than a dozen Vancouver police officers and a similar number of parks staff were involved in the clean-up.

Photo by Arlen Redekop / PNG

Caitlin Shane, a law student with the Pivot Legal Society, said she accompanied the campers from Hastings to Thornton. She said the group decided among themselves to head to Thornton.

“There are not a lot places for people to go,” Shane said. “It was important that it be centrally located, so people would have access to outreach workers, to resources.”

She said the choice of Thornton Park, the first thing city visitors see when they exit the nearby bus and train station, wasn’t meant to be provocative.

“58 West Hastings was fenced off, less visible than Thornton,” Shane said. “It doesn’t necessarily matter how visible it is because people are going to be removed and they don’t have anywhere else to go.”