A rest area and a park-and-ride in Abbotsford are home to more than 50 people living in derelict campers
Hieu Tran pulled his car into an Abbotsford rest area, expecting it to be deserted.
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Instead, he struggled to find a place to park, eventually squeezing into a gap between two rundown campers.
“How long has it been like this?” he asked, pausing on his way to the restroom. “This is shocking.”
The Cole Road rest area on Abbotsford’s eastern edge has become a trailer park of sorts, where travellers such as Tran, who was driving home to Alberta after the holidays, find a community of campers living in ramshackle RVs instead of a waypoint for travellers.
“Might as well stay on the highway,” reads a comment on a Tripadvisor post about the rest area.
“This should be removed from the B.C. government’s rest stops list until the homeless encampment has been removed,” says another.
But there appears to be no plan to remove the campers or several similar sites established on provincial land under Ministry of Transportation jurisdiction in Abbotsford. The rest area camp and another at the park-and-ride at Whatcom Road have only grown in recent months, with a collection of RVs and tents visible from the highway at five Abbotsford interchanges.
The camps first sprang up after the pandemic. There are now more than 40 vehicles at the Cole Road rest area and a similar number at Whatcom.
In a statement, the transportation ministry said it was prioritizing garbage cleanup at the sites. It also said outreach workers have been connecting with campers to ensure they are aware of available supports, such as the 206 shelter beds funded by the province in Abbotsford.
But if there is a plan to restore the areas to their previous uses, the government isn’t saying.
In some ways, the camps have become part of the community. Neighbours drop off blankets. Groups serve food from the back of a van. Outreach workers from non-profits and government agencies, identified by acronyms that distinguish them from each other, visit on a daily basis. For a time, a mother with two children lived in a camper at the Whatcom park-and-ride and walked her kids to a bus stop each morning.
But there is also a sense of unease. Early in the morning, truckers sound their horns as they rumble past the Whatcom camp, venting their frustration. At Cole Road, the charred remains of an exploded RV bleed soot every time it rains. At a tent camp beside the highway near Peardonville Road, ruts in the mud remain after a car careened off the roadway and levelled an empty tent. Rats scavenge in drifts of garbage. A used needle hides in a discarded coffee cup.
On his way to Surrey with a dump truck and trailer recently, Gurpreet Malhi parked on the side of the highway off ramp, then walked to Tim Hortons on Whatcom Road to buy lunch.
“There’s no place to park anymore,” he said.
Another truck driver, Harjot Sandu, enroute from Surrey to Kelowna, parked on a side road. He said he was worried about getting a ticket, glancing back at his truck several times.
Nearby, a tour bus was parked in front of a no-parking sign.
Michael Lane, who lives in a home near Whatcom Road, said the area feels increasingly unsafe.
The now-familiar sight of rundown RVs, garbage and sewage “sends a message that the safety and well-being of the community are not a priority,” he said.
While Abbotsford bylaw officers have no jurisdiction on provincial land, Abbotsford police are responsible for public safety. The department’s street outreach team, led by Sgt. Ryan Gray, visited the camps on a recent weekday.
Gray said his team has become experienced at connecting people with groups that provide housing or drug treatment when they want to leave the camps. The officer seemed to keep a running tab of the number of people living in each location, adjusting his count several times during an interview as he remembered a person at one camp had recently accepted a shelter bed, and another had decided to seek treatment.
The job is difficult, but “when you see a positive change in someone’s life, you hang your hat on that,” said Const. Jason Baskin, a team member.
There is little the police can do about some of the concerns residents bring to them. At Whatcom, a camper told officers a large garbage bin recently dropped off by the ministry had become a dump site for people unwilling to bring their garbage to the dump. The park-and-ride was strewn with household trash, including old children’s toys and clothes.
At Cole Road, a man asked officers when the remains of a burned trailer would be removed from the rest area. They had no answer for him.
The man said a loud explosion woke him up on Dec. 8. A barrage of heat and smoke hit him as he scrambled out of his motorhome and watched his neighbour’s trailer go up in flames. The fire melted parts of his RV. No one was seriously injured.
Sgt. Paul Walker said police are unable to solve many of the problems they encounter. “The provincial government has the larger hand to play.”
Chief Colin Watson said police have reached out to the provincial government to arrange for “a more robust level of involvement in keeping these locations clean, safe, and controlled in size while work is being done on larger provincial solutions to address the Lower Mainland housing crisis.”
Fire Chief Erick Peterson said firefighters were called to the Cole Road and Whatcom encampments 28 times in 2024, primarily for medical emergencies, vehicle fires and complaints about burning — compared to three times in 2019, before the camps were entrenched.
The rest area and park-and-ride “are not meant for long-term living and this can lead to public safety, fire and cleanliness challenges,” he said.
Abbotsford’s mayor said he shares the frustrations of many in his city. Ross Siemens said he hears “constant complaints” about the issues and eyesore created by the camps.
“People don’t care which level of government is responsible. They just want something done,” he said.
But Abbotsford bylaw officers have no jurisdiction on provincial land, and housing is not a responsibility — or cost — the city can take on, he said. “We can’t use property tax dollars for that. We’re already seeing property tax increases, and the sky’s the limit on this. I’m not trying to pass the buck, but I think it’s important that we stay in our lane.”
The mayor said he has raised the issue with the province numerous times, trying to build respectful relationships with various ministries, including those responsible for housing, transportation and mental health. Lately, he has specifically asked them to “stay on top of cleanliness” at the camps, which, apart from the rest area, didn’t have toilets or garbage bins. There are now garbage bins at some of the camps.
“If we lose the public’s compassion, it doesn’t bode well for getting people the help they need,” said Siemens. “There’s a bigger picture here. When people are frustrated by inaction, they lose their compassion.”
The city has had success in getting the province to take responsibility in the past, although it took several years. When the Lonzo park-and-ride at the Sumas interchange became an entrenched homeless camp, the province closed the parking lot and opened a 50-bed shelter on the site last spring. In June, another 59-bed shelter opened nearby. An additional 52 beds are expected to open at two more shelters in the next six months.
Whatcom camp resident Cory McShannock said he prefers living in his RV rather than a shelter. He can’t afford rent, although he occasionally does fire and flood restoration work to pay for food, gas and septic services.
He said other campers have a membership at a nearby fitness centre where they can take a shower. Some use the bathrooms at the gas station and restaurants across the road.
“We don’t want toilets or showers here,” he said. “That attracts junkies.”
The same goes for a meal program, he said. If an outreach group begins serving food, more people will come.
“We’re trying to stay under the radar.”
