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CRAB Park was never meant to be anyone’s home. 

Facing the North Shore mountains, its beauty contrasts its reality of being a space for those who have no other place to go. For two years, I lived in CRAB Park—not by choice but by necessity. What I witnessed was an outright assault on human rights. The City of Vancouver prides itself on progressive values, yet its actions toward the CRAB Park tent city have proved otherwise.

When CRAB Park was my home, I shared the space with dozens if not hundreds of others, each person with their own stories and struggles. During that time, City briefly provided us with six electrical outlets (to be shared between all of the residents)—but not all of them actually worked. On top of that, the lights in the park worked intermittently, despite pleas throughout the years to fix them. The closest access to a bathroom or drinkable water was up to a five-minute walk, and when we asked for something closer to the camp, our requests were denied.

The City’s negligence and harm extended far beyond broken outlets and a lack of essential services. City employees frequently destroyed our belongings without notice, dismantling not just our homes, but any sense of stability that we had managed to create for ourselves. I remember one time when a new mother returned to CRAB Park from the hospital after giving birth to her infant, only to find her home trashed by City workers. These actions weren’t accidental—they were deliberate, calculated measures to erase us.

We all knew that the CRAB Park cleanup last spring was a death sentence for the camp. They forced us out of our homes, trashed our belongings, and removed the important community space that we had built over the years.

And what did they offer in return? Fifteen tents. Fifteen—for a community that at the time had over 60 residents (not to mention the more than 5,000 unhoused individuals living throughout Metro Vancouver). This wasn’t compassion; it was cruelty disguised as policy. Those who didn’t qualify for these meager shelters were left to fend for themselves, discarded by a system that deemed them unworthy of basic care.

More recently, on November 7, City and Park Board officials conducted an eviction of the remaining residents in the park, further displacing people and scattering them all over the Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver loves to tout its efforts in harm reduction. It funds naloxone kits and safe injection sites, patting itself on the back for saving lives. But these measures are bandages on a hemorrhaging wound. They don’t address the root causes of addiction and homelessness: the lack of affordable housing, the absence of accessible healthcare, the systemic dehumanization of the poor.

Overdose prevention isn’t just about pulling someone back from the brink of death. It’s about giving them a life worth returning to. It’s about providing stable housing, mental health support, and a community that values them as human beings. Without these, harm reduction is just another hollow promise.

The fight for CRAB Park symbolizes not just the community we built, but also what kind of society we want to live in. Do we want leadership that feels good about erasing its most vulnerable? Or do we want a city that uplifts our most marginalized people, recognizes their humanity, and provides them with the resources they need to rebuild their lives?

I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for justice.

The residents of CRAB Park don’t need pity—they need action. They need affordable housing, healthcare, and dignity. They need a city that sees them not as nuisances to be swept away but as people worthy of respect and support. Vancouver can do better. It must do better. For every life at CRAB Park, for every person left behind, we must demand more.

This is why I’m calling on the public to stand with us. Your voice matters. Your outrage matters. Together, we can demand better from a city that has failed us for far too long.

CRAB Park is a story of resistance. It’s proof that even in the face of overwhelming odds, community can thrive.

Ryan Exner is a former resident of Crab Park, and a current overdose prevention site worker and human rights activist.