Employed but homeless in Prince George: One Millennium Park resident's story

Mosie has a job. She shows up for work on time. She does the job and after a long day she comes home.

She goes home to her tent at the Millennium Park encampment at the corner of First Avenue and George Street.

“I am living down here because I am the true definition of homeless, I make enough money at my job so I don’t get welfare but I don’t make enough money to get a place,” Mosie said. “Stigma is very real. I don’t have a criminal record. This is where I am because I have nowhere else to go because I won’t live in Moccasin Flats and I would like to keep all my stuff so I don’t stay at shelters.”

At the shelters, she said, people are offered a locker but it’s typically not big enough to hold all their possessions and if things are left unattended elsewhere, they tend to disappear.

Prince George city council has approved a proposal to remove the Millennium Park encampment and return the site to its previous condition, leaving those living there scrambling to find some place safe to live in Prince George.

Moccasin Flats is the only designated site where overnight camping is permitted in the City of Prince George. Those who will have to move from the Millennium Park encampment are supposed to go to Moccasin Flats, as named by the residents of the encampment at Lower Patricia Boulevard encampment.

Most of the unhoused people living in Prince George don't consider Moccasin Flats a safe place to be. One woman was shot there in 2021, there have been reports of stabbings and beatings and there have been several circumstances of dwellings set ablaze.

“I won’t go to Moccasin Flats because the last time I was there I was in line for supportive housing and I chose to go into treatment instead and when I got out I had lost my spot,” Mosie said.

She is still trying to find somewhere she can afford to live but rent is really high.

“I just do my best every day, I do what I can and try to live life as best I can,” she said.

Mosie said it’s safe at the Millennium Park encampment. There’s lighting and access to water and bathrooms at the shelters and it’s close to her work.

And when it comes time for the city to remove the Millennium Park encampment Mosie calls Mukluk Flats, she’ll go but she won’t be moving to Moccasin Flats.

“They can force me out of here and I will find somewhere else to camp,” Mosie said. “They may have to move me every day, I don’t care but I will not move to Moccasin Flats,” she said. “I know my rights. They can’t make me go to Moccasin Flats.”