Clearing the Camps Without Fixing What Drives Them Is Not a Solution. It Is a Loop.

Maple Ridge has cleared riverside encampments multiple times in the past two years. Each time, the people disperse temporarily and return, or move to a new location. The cycle will not end until the underlying conditions change.

The mechanics of a camp clearance in Maple Ridge are by now familiar. Notices are posted. A deadline is set. Bylaw officers and sometimes RCMP are present. Social service workers move through the area, offering connections to services that are, in most cases, either full or not suited to the specific needs of the people being asked to leave.

People take what they can carry. Some go to shelters. Some find other spots. Some return within weeks. The camp re-establishes, sometimes at the same location, sometimes nearby. The bylaw complaints accumulate again. The process repeats.

This is not a criticism of the people doing the clearances. Bylaw officers and RCMP are doing what they are asked to do, under conditions they did not create. The criticism is of the strategy — or rather the absence of one — that treats clearance as an outcome rather than as a step that only produces a durable outcome if it is followed by the housing, the treatment, the mental health support, and the income support that allows people to not return to encampments.

None of those things are primarily in Maple Ridge's control. They are provincial and federal responsibilities. What Maple Ridge can do — and should do more aggressively — is document the costs of the cycle, calculate what the municipality is spending on repeated clearances, and present that number to senior governments as evidence that the current approach is not working and is not free.

The camp will be cleared again. The question is what happens after.

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