Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside will be overseen by a new police district, as the city looks to render a temporary surge in police presence in the area into a permanent structure.
The creation of District 5 comes as Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim claimed the city had recorded a 23-year low in violent crime, seven months after the launch of “Task Force Barrage.”
“Task Force barrage is only the beginning,” Sim said.
“The Downtown Eastside can’t be transformed overnight, and it can’t be fixed by enforcement alone. Real change means moving from emergency response to long-term renewal.”
At a press conference at city hall on Monday, the city’s police and fire chiefs cited statistics they said showed a transformation not only in the Downtown Eastside, but in adjacent neighbourhoods between February and August.
Vancouver Fire Chief Karen Fry said medical incidents were down 28 per cent, false alarms were down 31 per cent and medical overdoses had fallen 36 per cent.
“Think of that, a third less calls,” she said.
The number of calls in which firefighters have had to wait for police to arrive and secure a scene were down by 25 per cent, she added.
“These results demonstrate that operation barrage is effectively reducing the demand on our resources,” said Fry.
Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai said officers had seized nearly 1,500 weapons in the DTES, including 171 guns.
Police recorded an 18 per cent drop in violent crime, a 44 per cent drop in robberies and a 23 per cent decrease in serious assaults in the neighbourhood, he said.
“We need meaningful change, and over the past month Task Force Barrage has shown what that meaningful change can look like,” Rai said.
“The Downtown Eastside is safer today than it was months ago.”
Some in the area’s business community say they’ve also seen a change.
“The sense of community is a little bit different than before. It seems a little bit more controlled and a little bit more sane,” said Brandon Grossutti, owner of Pidgin Restaurant.
With Task Force Barrage’s $5 million in funding now expiring, the VPD now aims to solidify its presence in the area by splitting the Downtown Eastside from the existing District 2 into a new District 5.
Rai said the policing model will be specific to the area, but that it was too soon to say how much the change would cost.
“We’re going to start off with a geographic specific area and as we transition to a full district, in the next quarter here, leading up to budget time that’s when we’ll throw an exact number,” he said.
The cost of task force barrage is one part of the reason the VPD is forecast to exceed its 2025 budget by nearly $7 million.
Along with the creation the new district policing the Downtown Eastside, Sim said he would also be bringing a motion to council to establish a new “performance framework” called VanStat.
The metric would allow for monthly performance review meetings looking at data from police, fire, engineering, housing, arts and culture and business service departments in the city.
“One that brings every department to the table, aligns resources, tracks outcomes and reports progress back to the public,” Sim said.
“No silos, no duplication, just accountability and transparency.”
Sim said he will bring his motion to council on Oct. 8.