Beginning in the deepest depths of winter 2024, photographer Jesse Winter and I spent months getting to know the tent community living in CRAB Park. There we met Dave Bradbury, who opened up to us about a series of tragedies that led him to become homeless for the first time during pandemic lockdown. He became a central figure at CRAB, overseeing the community’s kitchen tent. We also spent time with Kerry Bamberger, who said she couldn’t go back to living in a single room occupancy hotel because of violence she experienced there. She is one of the title litigants in a 2022 legal case that allows CRAB residents to shelter in tents around the clock. Jesse and I documented the economic disaster that has left so many Canadians out in the cold, and the cycle of cross-country clashes that followed. You can read the full piece in the June issue of Maclean’s.
More photos:
More on CRAB Park:
CBC Front Burner interview: The battle over Vancouver’s legal tent camp
Photo by Jesse Winter.
Sarah Berman, journalist 