DTES Encampments, as explained by David Eby

Stephen Quinn, sounding like former Councillor Colleen Hardwick, spoke to future Premier David Eby about the “slow motion disaster” on Aug 17th, 2022.

CBC clip taken by Raymond Tomlin on YouTube

So, future Premier David Eby wants to save the DTES.

Taken from Global News:

With the situation getting worse in the Downtown Eastside, incoming-B.C. premier David Eby says the province will take over running a coordinated approach to address issues in the Downtown Eastside.

“I have not seen it look worse. And I have not seen a worse situation for people than I have right now. I think we need to bottom line what is happening. It is far beyond what the city can handle on its own,” Eby said.

Eby explained a “bottom line” approach means the province will take on the role of coordinating the services and measuring the outcomes.

Eby is also outlining a medium- and long-term plan around coordinating the specific resources. This includes tracking outcomes in the Downtown Eastside including where money is being spent.

This was already alluded to in Eby’s August 17th talk with CBC’s Early Edition with Stephen Quinn.

More talk about temporary modular housing and safe supply, and vague promises of something more substantial.

No talk on why the problem with homelessness is centralized in Vancouver and not equitably redistributed to homes and resources throughout the province.

Look at Stephen Quinn's comments at 7:05, 11:23, and 12:16 and see how well they align with Councillor Hardwick.

Even Eby is having a Hardwick moment, not excluding the possibility of a DTES commissioner.

With all of the talk about “leadership,” former Mayoral candidate Fred Harding should be put on the job.

Here is the transcript:

Stephen Quinn SQ:

Up until a few weeks ago it was former housing minister David Eby’s job to deal with BC's housing and homelessness crisis. He is no longer at that post because he's running to become leader of the provincial NDP and if he succeeds, he'll replace John Horgan as premier.

And so as the City of Vancouver continues to dismantle a homeless encampment on Hastings Street this weekend, I met up with David Eby in Strathcona Park, the site of a former homeless encampment and we started our conversation and I've asked him what goes through his mind when he walks down Hastings Street now?

David Eby DE:

Well, I see highlights and I see huge challenges. So a couple of pieces where we've done really well as we're here in Strathcona Park where was a massive encampment and a lot of folks that were in this encampment are now housed in hotels that we've bought and non profits work with us to staff up...

SQ:

Do you know that for a fact, do you know that the people who were in this encampment have actually gone in hotels because we have another encampment in Crab Park right now, and we have hundreds of people on Hastings Street, so you know for real that the people who were in this camp are now in safe housing?

DE:

Yes, so BC Housing tracks residency of people and they keep track of people who came from this encampment and the Victoria encampment and typically when people who were housed in any of the encampments, about 80% of them remain in housing, but about 15 to 20%, because of a variety of reasons end up back outside.

SQ:

Why do you think people would rather be outside, some people would rather be outside than be in the sort of housing that sometimes is put aside for them, a SRO, a shelter for instance, which isn't housing at all?

DE:

Yeah, the reasons are really obvious, to me anyway, a lot of the SROs, in the Downtown Eastside especially, are, you know, you're sharing a bathroom on the floor with 10 other people, some rooms are actually windowless, there is no climate control, so in the summer gets very hot, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to know that a significant number of people who are living on Hastings Street right now actually have SRO rooms, but they are functionally unliveable and, so, there's those kinds of reasons, just the physical structure of the building.

There is also people with serious mental health challenges that even in supportive housing they struggle, they get in fights with other residents, they hoard things, or they start fires or they get in fights with staff and they are evicted from even supportive housing and so there's a couple reasons why people might end up outside rather than stay in the housing that has been provided.

SQ:

The point being that while BC housing and the provincial government and the city I guess has been able to find housing for some of the people who are in this camp, we've seen hundreds more people displaced from those SRO's that have been shut down or burned down.

DE 2:39:

Yes, I mean we had really a perfect storm of factors. We've had record growth in our population in the province last year, we put 100,000 people into the housing market looking for rentals, looking for a place to buy and I and a lot of people fell out of the bottom of the housing market we lost in buildings due to fire, due to flood and couple that with the stress of the pandemic that made the mental health and the opioid crisis so much worse, the results are very visible on Hastings Street.

SQ:

We do have this perpetual cycle of encampments. You know this through your work at Pivot, I know this because I've been a reporter for a while, but since Woods squat, the Woodward squat when that building was being renovated, Science World, Strathcona Park, Oppenheimer 1, 2, 3, probably 4, Hastings St., Main Street why do we have this continual cycle of people ending up in encampments in this city?

DE 3:35:

The warnings came for many years about the failures in our governments to invest in housing both at provincial and federal level, that eventually we will face a reckoning around homelessness and the housing crisis, and, so, we're losing housing stock for a variety of reasons, rents are going up beyond what people can afford that is why were seeing, despite huge investments in housing for the homeless, the homeless population either being static, like in Vancouver, or even increasing some parts of the province.

In my opinion the challenge of the Downtown Eastside is going to take provincial leadership in partnership with the city to expedite things like temporary modular housing, that can be used to swing spaces as we redevelop the SROs into appropriate housing to respond to the crisis on Hastings Street. We need a sense of urgency from the city and I think we can get it.

In this park we worked together to decamp this site and it's just a challenge. I think that ultimately, it will, if I'm successful on my leadership bid, it's going to have to come from the premier's office and if necessary, the province will have to take it over because somebody has to bottom line what's happening in this neighbourhood and and I don't see that happening right now in and I think that's our opportunity.

SQ 4:43:

It seems to me after talking to campers in various camps one of the most important things for them is autonomy. You know, I don't want to, they don't want to necessarily go into an SRO because there are rules if they want to have somebody up their room, and the attendant may try to charge them money for it and they don't wanna have to walk down six flights of stairs to have a smoke or they want to have a guest or they want a pet, the want a dog or they wanna have a drink or smoke a joint. You know there are rules around all of that in housing and shelters. You know, why wouldn't they want to camp outside?

DE 5:17:

You know, it's intuitive to me that a lot of people would want to do that, and it's understandable to me from the conditions of the buildings as well as the rules and the restrictions of those buildings that folks live in down there are not adequate or appropriate housing anymore.

So we need a plan and the province will do that if I'm successful to get rid of those SRO buildings, replace them with appropriate housing for folks so that people don't have to live outside but there will also be rules in some of the buildings and I think there has to be a balance between tenant protection and privacy within the buildings and the rights of somebody to do whatever they want.

SQ 5:57:

What would the old David Eby think of that? What would Pivot Legal Society antipoverty activist, pro housing activist, civil rights guy, what would he say about that?

DE 6:08:

You know, basically the same thing that that this David Eby is saying, that there are minimum standards that have to be met for people.

SQ:

So whose responsibility is that?

DE:

I think there's been been a gap between the city and the province and that gap needs to be addressed.

I think it's the province that needs to step up and take accountability and responsibility for the neighbourhood.

I think we are now beyond the point where the city can respond and I think it's going to have to be up to the province, the feds are too far away.

It's not their immediate object of attention, so it will be up to the province to coordinate that. You know, it's one of the unique things that I bring to the table in terms of my leadership.

That is still some history in the neighbourhood, some connections in the neighbourhood with folks who are organizing down there but also I think some credibility with the City of Vancouver, with police, with fire, with ambulance, with the broader community about getting things done, including improving conditions in the neighbourhood.

SQ 7:05:

When you see something like that, when you see whether it's Crab Park or this park it looks there's been some kind of natural disaster in this city and this is some kind of encampment to where, you know, refugees, people who people can't go back to their homes, have been put temporarily, but itself is a disaster.

DE 7:23:

Yes, and I think that it's a slow motion disaster but I don't think that it needs to be treated differently than any other kind of crisis and it's not just actually the Downtown Eastside, there are small versions of this in a number of centres in British Columbia and it's going to be up to the province to take a leadership role addressing that.

We haven't a talked about that, but there is a lot of people who are in the street being profoundly ill, and having appropriate responses, whether is outpatient services for them, or whether some people are gonna spend some time in a hospital or a care facility or a supported environment where they can actually have a chance instead of just letting them overdose repeatedly and then dying in the street.

SQ 8:07:

David, I just want to ask you about the numbers released from the coroner again this month we're talking about now so far this year more than a thousand deaths, just down slightly from from last month but here we are in year seven of what was supposed to be a medical emergency province wide, medical emergency, we have more than 10,000 people who have now died of poisoned drugs in this province, what's being done?

DE 8:38:

Yeah, horrific numbers and first I'll just express my condolences to the family and friends of those who have passed away. I know it has a profound effect on people when they lose someone regardless of the reason and when it feels preventable and avoidable like a drug overdose it makes it that much harder.

You know, I think the government has been successful at the provincial level in addressing demands around safe supply, working with Health Canada to get an exemption, making sure that people have access to prescription opioids for example, however clearly that's not sufficient.

I've heard really concerning stories about people who overdose multiple times a day that show up in the emergency rooms then are released back in the community instead of being held and supported to survive and they are not held until they have serious brain injuries that are caused by their overdoses.

And so when I think about what's been missing in the government response is the opportunity to be more interventionist with folks are in that kind of crisis and in particular on the treatment side of things to get people a chance to get out of using drugs when they don't know where they came, don't know what their strength at a risk of overdose.

In terms of the state of the drug market in the Downtown Eastside, it seems to me that people are able to access most drugs and the challenge we face is that they are toxic drugs and another people are actually seeking out fentanyl, that's what they are really looking for.

These are really challenging issues in government I think we should be doing everything we can to intervene when we can especially as early as possible when someone is in an addiction cycle that they have that seemless experience from detox through treatment and into social housing. And you know, looking for gaps in our response that's probably the most obvious one.

SQ 10:30:

When it comes to what's happening in the here and now just a few blocks away from where we are right now, when a worker from BC housing or if it's a police officer or someone from the fire department says to the people in the tent "You're gonna have to go, here is the order you gonna have to respect this order, you gonna have to leave" the question is "Go where?"

DE 10:50:

Well a number of the people on Hastings, many of them have SRO rooms. There are a number of people who are absolutely homeless. BC Housing does have some spaces.

When I was minister we've enough space for the Crab Park campers for example, so there are places where people can go.

But I agree to your core point which is that there should be coordination between the province and the emergency responders to make sure that people have a place to go and I do think that has been the intention of BC Housing, at least it was the last time I was on the file and that work should continue.

SQ 11:23:

Did you get the sense that what's happening down there right now, I mean that's always been that street scene on Hastings Street, we've seen it grown more dense recently, the tents though, over the period of time the couple of weeks with all these tent appear and I haven't seen that before what looked like a concerted effort, what do you think about that?

DE:

Yeah I've never seen that before either, but I have a have a feeling I think a lot of people have that the Downtown Eastside has never been in a more difficult or or in a more bad situation. I feel like it's been a steady downhill and the opportunity now is to be proactive to get ahead of this and to say what is our strategy for the Downtown Eastside and for the province to take a leadership role, to bottom line accountability and say we're going to coordinate these table, we are going to make this happen, which functionally is the piece in my opinion that is missing and is necessary now.

SQ 12:16:

If you were still a community activist and you were trying to think of a way to make Vancouver's homeless problem as visible as possible would you put it on a main street, put everybody in tents?

DE:

I've definitely seen some creative protests over my time. I seen squats in buildings, I've seen encampments and so on, but underlying, if that's in fact what happened, underlying is the poverty and desperation of people who were willing to live on the street, on the sidewalk, which is not somebody born early signed up for so that's the core issue regardless of how it manifested.

SQ 12:50:

Is this problem fixable?

DE:

I think it's fixable and the challenges of the Downtown Eastside are fixable, I thought they were fixable since I've first set foot in the neighbourhood and was shocked about what I saw it and I still believe that now.

SQ:

David, thank you so much.