Members of Surrey's homeless community gather to remember friends and family

Former residents of a tent encampment in Surrey,B.C., gathered Sunday to remember community members who have diedand to send a message that even though the so-called "SurreyStrip" has been dismantled, homelessness has not been solved.

At least 80 tents that made up the encampment along 135 A Streetin Surrey's Whalley neighbourhood were dismantled more than a yearago, and around 170 people who called the strip home were givenaccess to shelter beds or 160 units ofnew modular housing in thearea.

• 'Surrey Strip' tent city cleared of residents

But many former residents of the strip are still sleeping outsideor being bounced from shelter to shelter, according to Wanda Stopa,who was among the first to set up her tent along the strip.

"The modules didn't solve the problem. There's more than 160people that needed help," said Stopa, adding she didn't have ashelter for around a month after the encampment was dismantled.

"There's still a lot of us outside," she said.

Stopa helped organize Sunday's gathering, where one-timeoccupants of the strip and their allies came together to mourn andremember friends and loved ones who have died while homeless inSurrey and the surrounding region.

They wrote at least 60 names on a banner, a list that Stopa saidkeeps growing every day.

"Pretty well all these names on there, I don't classify them asmy friends, I classify them as my family," Stopa told the crowd atthe gathering.

A report from the B.C. Coroners Service in March found 175 homelessindividuals died in the province in 2016, up from 73 the yearbefore, and the majority of them died of drug overdoses or alcoholpoisoning.

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Isabel Krupp is an organizer with the Alliance AgainstDisplacement, a group that works with members of Surrey's homelesscommunity near the former 135 A Street strip.

"We need to create space to mourn these lives," Krupp said."We have to create that space ourselves to hold them in our heartsand to remember them."

"Surrey hasn't solved homelessness. It's hidden people away inthe bushes, and also hidden people away in modular housing andshelters," said Krupp, who added that residents of the modularhousing have told her the units are isolating.

As for Stopa, she said she could only be shuffled from shelter toshelter for so long. She decided to set up camp outdoors on aproperty not too far from the strip, where she has lived for thelast four months.

The new encampment has grown to a community of around 60 people,and Stopa said people stick together and make life easier for eachother.

Surrey bylaw enforcement officers notified residents last week oftheir intention to disperse the camp, according to Stopa, who saidshe plans to stand her ground.

"We're not going away," she vowed.