Vancouver closes Sound Wall camp, reports shelter exits and $4.85 million in county funding for shelter project

Vancouver city staff said an emergency order has closed the site known as the Sound Wall Camp and summarized March operations, including cleanups, shelter activity and progress moving people into housing, and announced Clark County will provide $4,850,000 toward the city's bridal shelter project.

Jamie, a city staff member presenting the monthly operational situation report, told council: "The first new emergency order for a while, is the closure of the property that, was kind of known as the Sound Wall Camp, which was about an acre and a quarter." The report said the city's website lists the properties and totals closed to camping.

The presentation gave March and year-to-date service metrics. Staff reported 11 deaths among people experiencing homelessness since the homeless memorial in December, six of them in March; the March totals included three overdoses and one suicide. Fire-department emergency-service counts were said to be similar to the same period in 2024; staff reported roughly 1,934 emergency responses for the first quarter and 708 other year-to-date calls (figures from the transcript). For March, 11.7% of total events were identified as directly related to unsheltered homelessness, and those events accounted for an estimated 19.7% of patrol time, up from the prior month.

City staff described large-scale cleanups…