Podcast: Bylaw trashing unhoused people's belongings (E05: Oct 17, 2026)

Host: David P. Ball

Naloxone kits pulled off fences and discarded. Memorials for deceased loved ones dismantled. And a person’s death 48 hours after a bylaw sweep trashed rescue medication for their lungs.

We talk to De Facto journalists Brishti Basu and Mike Graeme in Victoria about their investigation into the devastating impacts of increasingly aggressive bylaw enforcement, and the fallout from officers throwing away possessions that are physically and emotionally important to them. 

They proved — by tracking unhoused people's belongings using Apple AirTags — that tents end up in the landfill within days of a bylaw sweep, despite officials' insistence that no such thing happens to new or otherwise functional items in Victoria.

REFERENCES:

• Victoria bylaw officers trashed newly donated tents within days — contrary to city claims
• As election cycle spotlights homeless crisis, bylaw seizures ‘devastating’ for Victoria’s unhoused

CREDITS:

• Theme music courtesy of Devours (November, Homecoming Queen, and 10 Things I Crave About You) with permission
• Originally aired on Vancouver Co-operative Radio CFRO 100.5FM
• Broadcast from the unceded Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations