Calls for homeless camp to be shut in Vancouver park as council considers plan

Residents of a Vancouver neighbourhood want the city to shut down a homeless encampment at a park where people have been living in about 400 tents since the summer.

Kelsey Mulyk says families in Strathcona have lost use of the park in June. Data from police show calls to the area more than tripled between June and September compared with the same period last year.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart has called a special council meeting for tomorrow night on the city's homelessness problem.

He wants councillors to approve his 30-million-dollar plan to buy or lease hotels and vacant commercial buildings to house about 750 homeless people in the city.

He says that's the best option to get funding from the provincial and federal governments because other ideas councillors have come up with, including putting tents on the lawn of city hall, are not workable in the long term.