The homeless encampment near Island 22 Regional Park in Chilliwack ended up causing a spike in crime that rippled across the region in 2023.
That’s the statistical picture emerging from Chilliwack RCMP’s fourth-quarter crime report, presented by Supt. Davy Lee at Chilliwack city hall on March 5.
“The data shows that 130 people associated with the encampment on Cartmell Road accounted for 734 police files,” Lee said, about investigations by the Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment last year, with most of them from Chilliwack, Lee said. A further 903 police files connected to those in the camp were opened by other Lower Mainland agencies.
RCMP members joined with local First Nations leadership and outreach service providers in Chilliwack in tackling the situation at the homeless camp on Cartmell Road, Lee explained.
That saw the dismantling of the camp in early 2024 that had seen growing numbers of unhoused people squatting in trailers, campers, and tents, as well as prolific offenders known to other policing jurisdictions.
“Specific to the project, we applied for and we were successful in obtaining Special Investigation and Targeted Enforcement program funding of $85,000.”
RCMP officers from across the region were able to co-ordinate investigations into prolific offender activity by working on files together.
“It highlights the transient nature, with police involvement from other jurisdictions, of these individuals,” Lee said.
Overall Chilliwack crime stats for 2023 had been on an “upward trajectory,” but there were modest decreases to priority 1 calls, and crimes against the person in the last quarter, the top cop said.
They show a 93 per cent increase in police calls, just to the area around the encampment alone in 2023, over the 2022 totals.
Lee said a “heat map” was produced for the report titled ‘Where Do Assaults Take Place?’ Shaded in bright red is showed that the majority of assaults, that occurred in open air as opposed to residences, took place on the north side, centred around Chilliwack proper and downtown.
Coun. Jeff Shields wanted to know in terms of crime locations, if RCMP had noted an increase in crime with more of the unhoused or transient populations seen in Garrison or Vedder being reported.
“Has there been an uptick in any crime rates there, or anything noticeable?” Shields asked after the encampment on the north side was emptied.
The reply was there was no specific increase in crime had been noted particularly on the south side, but Lee stated that their “attention and focus” had really been on the encampment on Cartmell Road.
In terms of prolific offenders in 2023 there were 487 combined police files, seven “problem residences” shut down, with ” six offenders spending a total of 820 days in custody and counting,” according to the fourth quarter crime report.
To compare the annual stats in calls for service to the homeless camp, there were 195 police files opened in 2023, a sizeable spike in the rates compared to 101 files in 2022, and 91 in 2021.
Of those 195 files in 2023 there were 19 crimes against the person, 26 property crimes, 31 other offences like weapons, or breach of conditions, and 120 other types of police calls for other occurrences such as suspicious behaviour, wellbeing checks, traffic files, shots fired, or missing persons as examples.
Coun. Bud Mercer asked about how it had been going since the dismantling of the encampment, and if the surrounding area and neighbourhoods had seen a downturn in property crime, and was told that anecdotally that had been noted.
In December 2023, a trespassing notice went up at the encampment, effectively putting those camping illegally on notice they were to leave the property owned by Shxwhá:y Village, in order to make room for a staging area in upcoming flood prevention works. Officials worked with outreach agencies for months to offer those experiencing homelessness whatever health and social service resources were available to empty and take apart the illegal camp.
READ MORE: Encampment issued eviction notice for 2024
