I spent the past weekend tracking the final days of Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park homeless encampment for @vicenews - here's what I saw: vice.com/en_ca/article/…
In the days leading up to the park's closure over concerns that COVID-19 could tear through it like wildfire, activists and houseless folks staged protests over what they said was an effort to house only the most visible, not the most vulnerable 
By Saturday at noon, nearly all of the roughly 300 people who lived in Oppenheimer Park had been moved out - mostly into hotels, hostels and SROs according to B.C. Housing. Then the bulldozing began
While people were given two weeks to move their belongings out, some people still lost valuables during the closure. Kim Berg said she was prevented from retrieving everything from her tent because it got fenced off. She lost her mothers ashes, and her son's, she said.
Chrissy Brett - long the park's unofficial spokeswoman - chose to leave. She rallied volunteers to help her move, and a private donation paid for two U-Haul trucks, she said.
Amanda, who asked that her last name not be used, said she was given a space in a local hotel. Her partner Chris, however, said he was denied. "I guess I'll set up my tent somewhere else," he said
As night fell, a handful of tents had sprung up around a sacred fire in a parking lot beside Vancouver's *CRAB Park, where a few people gathered - watched over by a lone security guard and the glittering towers of Vancouver's downtown
*repost to correct the name of CRAB (Create a Real Available Beach, not Crabb) park. The name was changed officially in 2004 to recognize the work of DTES advocates who fought for the parks creation in the first place.
