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“I’m having people call me about the value of their home plummeting if they’re beside a park or behind a park, when before it used to add value,” Gaetz said. “This issue has broadsided all of us. People are demanding we immediately give everyone a ticket to Hope.”

Dominic Flanagan, executive director of B.C. Housing, said the scarcity of affordable housing is putting pressure on all municipalities but said tent cities should not be considered not a viable alternative. Instead, he said, they should be dismantled as quickly as possible before they get established, while work is done to find the people stable housing.

“People living in tent cities are the most marginalized and disenfranchised people in our community,” he said.

Coleman agreed the “game has changed a little bit for all of us in the past few months,” as a result of B.C.’s overheated real estate market and the prevalence of fentanyl in the local drug scene. He said that even as the province and the city of Victoria created more housing for those in the tent city, more people were coming all the time, spurred by social media or egged on by advocates living on site.

He urged municipalities to address the situation, even if it’s unpopular. Maple Ridge has faced opposition from residents who don’t want a homeless shelter in their neighbourhoods. At the same time, municipalities are hampered in dismantling tent cities because the courts, citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with ruling in favour of those who have nowhere else to go.

Said Coleman: “The big challenge is how do we stop these in the future.”

ksinoski@postmedia.com

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