Service providers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) have mixed reactions to the mayor’s plans to transform the neighbourhood.
Ken Sim has promised to break what he described as the “poverty industrial complex,” by prioritizing accountability, public safety and recovery. Sim says that for too long, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the area without delivering meaningful change.
The proposed policy shift includes decentralizing services and pausing the construction of new supportive housing across the city until more is built in other Metro Vancouver municipalities.
PHS Community Services Society, which provides more than 1,700 units of supportive housing in Vancouver and Victoria along with health care and harm reduction, rejects the idea that non-profit organizations in the DTES are simply maintaining the status quo and not improving the situation.
“My god, if we didn’t exist what you would see would be the things that are our daily reality,” PHS CEO Micheal Vonn told Global News. “I can only say it’s a very big job.”
Vonn said employees of PHS modular housing buildings, highly supportive low-barrier homes and shelters are the “goalies” for the most vulnerable.
“When the puck gets past everyone else, those are the folks that we are trying to serve,” said Vonn.
“When healthcare says we can’t handle this, we can’t house somebody who starts fires, when some kind of traditional housing says we can’t handle this person with a brain injury — we can’t handle, we can’t handle, we can’t handle — we say, ‘we’ll try.’”
The magnitude, acuity and severity of what PHS staff deal with needs to be understood and appreciated, said Vonn.
“It means people who are mentally ill to the point where they hoard things that I’m not even going to discuss,” she said.
PHS said it is pro-safety, wants solutions and needs to be at the table for change.
The CEO of The Bloom Group, which also provides housing, health and social service supports to people with chronic health challenges and addictions, said he generally agrees there needs to be a change in everyone’s approach to the DTES.
Wayne J. Henderson told Global News he will be reaching out to Ken Sim directly.
“I am very interested in moving this concept forward, with positive results for all,” Henderson said via email earlier this week.
The Bloom Group provides 127 units of affordable housing, supportive homes for 66 residents and housing for 81 individuals with chronic mental health challenges in the DTES, according to its website.
“There (are) a lot of homeless people down here that really need housing and a little bit of help to change their lifestyle,” DTES resident Matthew Charleson told Global News.
Charleson said he wants to change his lifestyle after moving to the DTES from Vancouver Island to focus on his recovery.
Formerly homeless, Charleson said he found a place to live at the Jubilee Rooms and is optimistic about the mayor’s plans for change in the low-income neighbourhood.
“I’d back him up 100 per cent, hopefully he does what he says,” Charleson said in an interview.
Charleson added he wants to leave the DTES and start working again.
“I wouldn’t want to be downtown if it’s going to stay the same like this,” he said. “Anywhere else but here.”