The B.C. government is taking legal action against an encampment in the Okanagan community of Penticton. 

In a case scheduled to start Monday, B.C.’s Minister of Transportation and its Attorney General are seeking an injunction against “approximately 23 individuals” living in an area known as the Fairview Encampment, just off Highway 97, south of Kelowna.

The small patchwork of tents and structures sits on provincially owned land. The province is now applying for a legal order to remove people from the property, and served notice of its intention to do so last month.

Jason Matchett, one of the people living in the encampment, says he has nowhere else to go.

“There’s just no options,” he said. “This is the wrong way to go about it. I don’t what the problem is, letting somebody live somewhere, even if it’s just outside.”

The province declined to provide an interview or statement to CBC News, but in its notice of application filed in court, it says the “public safety risks posed by the Fairview Encampment are extreme,” noting it has been the source of multiple fires and stating that “individuals at the Fairview Encampment have repeatedly tampered with traffic light regulation system in order to obtain electricity.”

It also states that its location close to “one of the busiest highways in the area” is itself a safety risk to both drivers and camp residents.

City rejected tiny home facility

The province has tried other strategies to clear the encampment.

Among those strategies was providing funding for a 50-unit tiny home facility in Penticton for camp residents to move into, but that proposal was rejected by Penticton city council in December.

WATCH | Some residents wanted facility to be ‘dry’:

Penticton residents question why tiny homes proposal can’t be a dry facility

Okanagan MLA Amelia Boutlbee is raising questions about a local housing project after discovering that Victoria has been approved for a dry housing initiative. As Tiffany Goodwein reports, this comes after Penticton residents were told a project planned for their community had to have an overdose prevention site.

Mayor Julius Bloomfield was one of just two council members who voted in favour of the project, but said council had concerns about the site’s location and whether drug use would be allowed on the site, without accompanying treatment options.

Bloomfield also said he hoped the province would focus on finding a way to move people in the encampment to a new location should the Fairview site be shut down.

“You have to put some effort into finding some housing,” he said.

In past cases in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada, city governments have sought injunctions against encampments on municipal lands, with courts generally ruling that shutdowns can proceed if there is somewhere else for residents to go.

Margot Young, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Allard School of Law, said people have the right to sleep outdoors if there isn’t any other available options.

“As long as there are insufficient shelter beds available for the number of individuals in that area who are unhoused, there is a right to put up temporary shelter on public lands overnight,” she said. 

Young noted the previous rejection of the tiny home facility could also impact the province’s case.

“You really can’t have it both ways. You can’t say we’re not going to provide some sort of reasonable housing for individuals, but at the same time we’re going to prevent any kind of self care, or self action that they’re taking to give themselves protection from the elements.” 

The initial application in the case is expected to last three days.