A court in British Colum­bia has sided with the home­less on putting up tents in parks. The court says the home­less can sleep in Van­cou­ver parks if there is not enough shel­ter space for them. The court rec­om­mends to the city that the best way to tackle the prob­lem is by mak­ing more shel­ters avail­able for the homeless.

From the Van­cou­ver Sun, this Reuters arti­cle explains the courts decision.

A British Colum­bia Court of Appeal panel upheld a lower court rul­ing that a ban on so-called tent cities in parks vio­lated a home­less person’s con­sti­tu­tional right to secu­rity if there is not enough shel­ter space is available.

Poverty activists sued Vic­to­ria after the city it shut down a tent city that housed about 70 peo­ple in 2005. The activists said sleep­ing in tents in parks was safer than hav­ing to use city sidewalks.

The city on the Pacific coast has a more tem­per­ate win­ter cli­mate than the rest of Canada, and its home­less pop­u­la­tion was sig­nif­i­cantly larger than the avail­able shel­ter space.

The city said the ban was to pro­tect the parks.

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