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Analysis
Health
Housing

We Can Make the Downtown Eastside Better, Without Evictions

Instead of booting people from places like Oppenheimer Park, we could invest in quality, complex care for vulnerable residents. It will pay off.

Katie Hyslop 20 Aug 2019TheTyee.ca

Katie Hyslop is a staff reporter at The Tyee. Find her previous stories here.
Illustration by Indiana Joel
‘Jim,’ profiled by The Tyee in 2016, faces many challenges trying to stay housed and alive in the Downtown Eastside. What residents like him need is clear, but so far there’s never been the will. Illustration by Indiana Joel for The Tyee.

Thanks to the Vancouver Park Board, 240 people camping in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park tent city will be evicted by Wednesday. So far only 100 units of housing are available to take them in.

This is the second time in five years a tent city has been evicted from the Downtown Eastside park.

But Downtown Eastside residents say what’s different today is that the concentration of poverty, homelessness, untreated mental health issues and open drug use is much worse than it was in 2014.

Three years ago, The Tyee did a deep dive into why roughly 300 people in Vancouver, many in the Downtown Eastside, kept cycling through income assistance, emergency rooms, court appearances and shelters.

The two-part series focused on “Jim,” a 44-year-old man whose complex struggles are emblematic of those faced by many others in the neighbourhood. You can find Jim’s story of navigating the systems here, and our follow-up story on solutions here.

The stories found that we’ve long known the solutions for folks like Jim: increased, coordinated investments by governments in long-term housing and 24/7 wrap-around mental and physical health services and supports for everyone who needs it. (Of course, this isn’t just needed in the Downtown Eastside, but across British Columbia.)

In light of the latest tent city eviction, we’re directing you back to this two-part series for context behind B.C.’s multifaceted homelessness crisis, and the possible solutions. Find it here.

It will cost money to fix this. And, as the series lays out in detail, investments must be strategic to work. With a dose of political will, savings from the resulting decline in policing, hospital, and shelter costs would cover the initial costs.

Not every person experiencing homeless needs wrap-around services and supports, just a safe and affordable place to call home.

But for those whose mental health, trauma, and substance misuse contribute to their chronic homelessness, we need smarter investments across B.C. to ensure people stay in housing and off the streets. [Tyee]

Read more: Health, Housing

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