Tina Dawson has become a community leader at the parking lot encampment next to Victoria’s Royal Athletic Park. Dawson has only been homeless herself for nine months.

Yet Dawson says she won’t be signing up when the Save-On-Foods arena shelter a block away reopens March 1.

“I can tell you not one of these people here want to move in there,” she said.

“It’s inside a place that’s being monitored and controlled and you don’t feel the safety of having people we know as our neighbours.”

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