VANCOUVER -- The once overcrowded tent city of homeless in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has transformed into a patchwork of dead grass and mud with a few holdout campers.
Tired men in dirty clothing folded up tents and pushed overflowing carts away from Oppenheimer Park, at the same time that city workers used pitchforks and rakes to shovel the leftovers into trash bins.
The encampment that sprung up in July and became a congregation of the city's homeless was dispersing peacefully, as campers said they would figure out where to sleep when night fell.
Ben DuPont, who has lived in the camp since the start, says he refuses to move to the city's subsidized Single Room Occupancy accommodations or shelters because they have more germs and risks than the streets.
But Annie Cavanagh, who volunteered in the camp's kitchen for two weeks, says it's time the tents came down because there's no longer any doubt about the city's homeless problem, and now people need warmer shelter and to get help with health needs.
One person was found dead of what appeared to be natural causes on Wednesday, the same day as the deadline set by a B.C. Supreme Court judge for the homeless to leave the camp.
