Vancouver’s Poorest Area Braces for Mayor’s Policing ‘Barrage’

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has revealed a new policing initiative for the Downtown Eastside: Task Force Barrage.

It comes on the heels of other announcements he’s been making to “revitalize” the neighbourhood, from a change to the area plan to a pause in adding net new supportive housing.

Sim’s vision has many Downtown Eastside residents on edge. Four dozen organizations and counting — ranging from the neighbourhood’s charities to unions to housing providers — have signed a letter opposing the plans. Tenant groups have also organized a rally in protest at city hall.

Sim announced the task force on Feb. 13, with the city to carry out the initiative with the Vancouver Police Department. It intends to target organized criminal networks and repeat offenders. Sim has been particularly frustrated with the federal government’s lack of action on bail reform.

“We’re not here to target everyday residents in the Downtown Eastside community,” said police Chief Adam Palmer at the launch, “and we’re not here to target people who are struggling with addictions issues and complex mental health issues. That’s not our goal.”

Palmer outlined three priorities of the task force: more officers to reduce street crime and violence, more investigations to target organized crime and more partnerships to address community needs.

Sixty officers are currently working in the neighbourhood; the task force will add more to create what Palmer called “surge capacity.”

The long-term initiative is estimated to cost $5 million, which Sim will present to council for approval later this year.

When asked by media why the police’s existing $420-million budget needed a boost, especially given the average decrease of crime citywide, Palmer mentioned the need for more integrated response teams. They comprise firefighters and city staff in addition to police officers.

“You can go around and arrest people for committing crime, but people will still not feel safe if they go down there and there’s structures and tents, and people openly using drugs on the street, and filth and garbage and excrement everywhere,” said Palmer.

A shift for the neighbourhood

A leaked document shared by the mayor’s office with fellow councillors from his ABC party outlined other potential ideas.

The document was first reported by the Globe and Mail and hinted at further plans to transform the neighbourhood: spot rezonings, a “comprehensive review” of non-profits and a “re-unification roundtable with First Nations, Métis and other Indigenous groups,” stating that “many members of the Indigenous community have expressed a desire to live in their home Nations.”

A statement to The Tyee and other media from Trevor Ford, the mayor’s chief of staff, notes that the leak was “a draft internal working document meant to inform discussions and explore ideas. It has not been presented publicly because it is not a finalized strategy. Any actions taken from this document would be presented publicly as a motion through the standard processes.”

The leaked document and the mayor’s recent announcements mark a shift from the Downtown Eastside motion that was passed by council in 2023.

It was proposed by then-ABC Coun. Rebecca Bligh and contained a wide number of priorities, from replacing single-room occupancy buildings to providing culturally appropriate health services to economic development for low-income people, to be done in partnership with local organizations and senior governments.

Bligh, an outspoken councillor, was ejected from the ABC party on Valentine’s Day. The party said she was “not aligned” with its priorities.

“While the mayor is investing $5 million in more funding from police, imagine if the city could put that towards bringing people who are currently at risk if they have no place to go indoors, by investing in more housing,” Bligh told The Tyee.

She said her 2023 motion was the result of her years as a councillor listening to Downtown Eastside residents and organizations, and that any plan council pursues for the neighbourhood has to be “transparent” and done “in collaboration with the community.”

Residents reply

When Jean Swanson — the former Coalition of Progressive Electors or COPE city councillor and volunteer spokesperson with the Carnegie Housing Project — first heard the name of the task force, she wondered what it was referring to.

“I had to look up ‘barrage,’” she said. “It’s an artillery dump.”

After the mayor first began sharing his new Downtown Eastside plan, her group organized a town hall on Jan. 30 at the Carnegie Community Centre, located at the neighbourhood’s intersection of Main and Hastings.

It was attended by 150 people and featured a cardboard Trojan horse to illustrate the community’s fears the mayor’s plan is hiding potential for gentrifying real estate development.

“[Sim] should have come,” said Swanson. Her group surveyed residents that evening about what the neighbourhood needs. She said she wished he could have seen that the consensus was “affordable, safe, secure housing.”

Swanson was confused about why the mayor was pushing such a hard approach at his announcement while also sharing his understanding of what some of the Downtown Eastside’s most vulnerable residents go through.

“He himself admits that if you’re homeless, you have 19 times the chance of being a victim of a crime. And if you’re mentally ill... 23 times. So you’d think he’d come up with a solution that involved four walls and a door. But no, he wants to keep people on the street and put more cops there. So it’s bizarre.”

Downtown Eastside residents have noticed an increased police presence ever since Sim’s announcement, said Dave Hamm. He’s lived in the neighbourhood for 16 years and is the vice-president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, headquartered on East Hastings.

Hamm is not convinced by the police chief’s comments that Task Force Barrage won’t affect “everyday residents.”

“I find it very bad taste to sit there and say that because of all of the terrorizing of street sweeps,” he said. “It’s so hard on people being moved around all of the time. They can’t help but be traumatized by the excessive [police] presence here. If there’s any ‘street disorder,’ they’re the ones creating that with their presence.”

Hamm also referenced the visibility of police weapons and the incidents of police violence in recent years that have resulted in a number of deaths, including that of Chris Amyotte, an unarmed 42-year-old man who was shot with “bean bag” rounds. They are made of cloth and Kevlar and are filled with metal pellets.

“Everybody has PTSD here,” said Hamm. “People are scared.”

In 2022, Sim ran on a campaign promise of hiring 100 police officers and 100 mental health nurses. Today, the count is at 200 officers and 35 mental health nurses.

“Should 65 cops be putting on nursing uniforms?” asked Hamm.

Lessons from Project Brighthaven

Sim, in his launch of Task Force Barrage, pointed to the success of a different initiative by the Vancouver Police Department that started last October.

In Project Brighthaven, police deployed more officers to the neighbourhoods surrounding the Downtown Eastside, who conducted more patrols and more investigations, in an effort to improve safety.

Recent data shows that the efforts have reduced a number of crimes in the Gastown and Hastings Crossing business districts. There have been declines in shoplifting, assaults involving weapons and assaults causing bodily harm compared with a year before.

“I do know that beat officers were going in, talking to our members, working closely with myself personally and our private security,” said Walley Wargolet, the executive director of the Gastown Business Improvement Association.

“This is awesome and really necessary in order to solve some of the crimes, specifically organized crime issues, that have become way too prevalent and have spread too far... [but] where is the help for these folks with mental health issues? Because if we don’t have a $5-million plan to address these issues, then we’re only going to solve a piece of this and not all of it.”

The Gastown BIA and the Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Association conducted over 2,000 wellness checks in 2024, a number that has increased each year since the pandemic. Wargolet says they’ve often found people lying in the street or an alleyway. But he says that when his team calls the health authority’s mental health line, it goes to a voice mail, and they don’t get called back.

“We have immediate needs here. It has to be on-the-ground help, alongside the police, immediately.”

He’s hoping that the mayor announces funding for more integrated services, “so investments that we’re making in policing are equal with investments made in supporting folks who need our help.”

That goes for housing too.

“I’m assuming that was a mistake because I don’t think anyone in our community thinks we need less supportive housing,” said Wargolet. “Do I agree that we need to have a regional strategy about this? One hundred per cent. Do I think Vancouver can absorb all of them? No... but I think any kind of moratorium on any kind of housing in the city of Vancouver would be a misstep.”

The Gastown BIA has been around for four decades, and so have these issues of crime, homelessness, mental health and public safety, he said.

“Grandma used to say, ‘Be careful of people who only have one tool in their hand. If they have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ They’ll fix some things, but they could damage other things.”