A grassroots organization is warning that the presence of Vancouver police is deterring people who use drugs from accessing harm reduction services in the Downtown Eastside, or DTES.
Vancouver Police Department officers are “parking and lingering directly outside” of supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites and drug user community organizations, according to a press release from Police Oversight with Evidence and Research, or POWER.
Police presence has been shown to deter people from accessing supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites.
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POWER is a research project founded in 2024 by the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, or VANDU, and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society.
“Access to harm reduction sites is already a challenge for a lot of people because we live in a city, a province and a country that stigmatizes drug use,” said Caitlin Shane, a staff lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, which is a partner and collaborator with POWER.
“Now is not the time to be interfering with that access, particularly for marginalized communities.”
Accessing these services in a public health emergency can be the difference between life and death, Luca D., a community organizer with VANDU, told The Tyee.
“The police are an oppressive force for people in this neighbourhood and they don’t feel safe when they’re around,” Luca said. “They instil fear and that’s a result of their own actions.”
At least once a day, most days, one or two cop cars are parked within 20 metres of the front doors of VANDU, sometimes with officers inside and the lights flashing, Luca said.
It used to be common to see pairs of cops patrolling the neighbourhood on foot, Luca said. Then the city approved $5 million for “Task Force Barrage,” which the VPD says aims “to restore safety in the Downtown Eastside by targeting organized criminals, violent offenders, and street disorder that leads to increased crime and victimization.”
Luca says today it’s more common to see groups of three to six officers patrolling.
Supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites are places where people who use drugs can do so with access to sterile equipment and with health-care providers nearby who can quickly intervene if a person overdoses or goes into medical distress.
Unregulated substances are the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, killing 2,271 people in the province last year.
Provincial and federal exemptions allow people to legally use illicit drugs at the sites. Outside the sites, however, those same drugs are illegal.
VPD spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison told The Tyee police presence does not deter people from using drugs and that the VPD’s officers encourage people to use overdose prevention sites rather than use in public. There is widespread public drug use in the neighbourhood, Addison said.
“The notion that an unoccupied police car would deter someone from accessing one of these services is ignorant of reality,” Addison said, adding that POWER is using a “ridiculous false narrative.”
“It is not an enforcement priority to arrest people on the DTES who are living with drug addiction and it’s been that way for years,” Addison added.
But the data doesn’t support that claim, said Shane.
Statistics from the B.C. government show that when B.C. brought in its decriminalization pilot project, simple drug possession arrests decreased, and then increased again when the pilot project was effectively ended.
If police weren’t arresting people for drug possession, Shane said, then why did arrests dip with the implementation of the decriminalization pilot project, and increase again afterwards?
Shane said she hopes the VPD, which says it supports service providers and patrons of harm reduction sites, will take a moment of self-reflection to listen to the community’s concerns.
“You can’t claim to support these sites if your presence has been demonstrated to deter access,” she said.
Shane said she spoke with the VPD in 2022 and was told there is “directive and informal policy that officers not block entrances of overdose prevention, supervised consumption or harm reduction sites.”
She said she asked for more details, including information about who developed the informal policy, and if she could have the directive in writing, but wasn’t given any further information.
When The Tyee asked the VPD if there was a formal or informal policy about officers parking out front of harm reduction sites and if it had changed recently, Addison said there was no policy.
That points to the need for clarification around these policies, Shane said.
“People need to know their rights and to understand the abilities and limitations of officers,” she said.
When The Tyee asked Luca if an increased police presence could improve public safety in the DTES, Luca said it was important to ask who that would improve safety for.
The violence and crime that happens within the DTES mostly affects community members, but a lot of “fear mongering” happens that suggests outsiders are threatened too, he said.
“People who are victims of these crimes are often the people who are harassed and policed by police,” Luca said. “They’re not actually stopping this from happening, just further victimizing those who are already victims.”
Politicians could better support the DTES by investing in health, mental health and support services, safe consumption sites, more treatment and detox services, housing and prescribed alternatives, Luca said.
Mayor Ken Sim and the Vancouver Police Board have not answered questions about how funding for Task Force Barrage was approved, according to reporting by CTV.
The VPD has credited recent high-profile arrests to Task Force Barrage.
