The lease on a downtown drug consumption site is set to expire at the end of the month and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has refused to say publicly whether a replacement facility has been found in the neighbourhood.
The Thomus Donaghy overdose prevention site in the 1100-block of Seymour Street opened in March 2021 but VCH was informed by the City of Vancouver in July 2023 that it would not renew the lease on the city-owned space beyond March 2024.
The health agency’s regional manager of public affairs Meaghan Benmore told Glacier Media in a Feb. 16 email that “we are in the process of securing a new location. We will be sharing information on [a] new location once one has been secured.”
Follow-up emails sent this month to Benmore for more details had not been returned by the time this story was published. The city’s communications department has deferred inquiries about a new site to VCH.
The lack of public information on whether a new site has been found has harm reduction advocates Sarah Blyth-Gerszak and DJ Larkin worried about whether a badly needed service in the neighbourhood will continue.
Blyth is executive director of the Overdose Prevention Society and Larkin is executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Both say a new site is crucial for clients of the existing operation, which offers a safe place to use drugs.
“There's not enough services downtown,” said Blyth-Gerszak, who is in charge of an overdose prevention site near Main and East Hastings streets. “People are getting help from the [current] site. My hope is that another one can be found, especially since so many people are dying in that neighbourhood.”
Data shows firefighters responded to 410 overdose calls in the neighbourhood in the first nine months of 2020 — second only to the Downtown Eastside, which logged 2,054 calls over the same period.
“It's really important for sites to be in places where people are, and are used to being, especially for folks with mobility issues,” Larkin said.
“Even a couple of blocks can be a massive barrier to accessing services…having a site in that community is going to be the best way to make sure people have somewhere indoors and safe to go.”
'Proven unviable for sustained operations'
VCH learned that the lease would expire in a July 19, 2023 letter from Sandra Singh, who was the city’s general manager of community services at the time.
Singh, now a deputy city manager, told Miranda Compton, VCH’s executive director of substance use and priority populations, that the location “has proven unviable for sustained operations.”
Singh later told Glacier Media that the city has been “challenged to manage the extensive congregation outside of this location.” Many of the people who gather at the site, she said, were not clients of the four-booth drug injection facility, or associated with it.
“The outdoor socialization draws many others to the area, the cumulative effect resulting in significant operating challenges for current and neighbouring operations and services,” said Singh, adding that staff would provide any support needed to VCH to set up another site in the area.
Drug inhalation rooms
In responding to the city’s position, Larkin said the current site is not big enough, doesn’t have enough resources and its hours are limited. In addition, it is not equipped with an inhalation room for people who smoke drugs.
“When they don't have inhalation services, it means that there's going to be people outside because they don't have somewhere to wait, and they don't have somewhere to be if they're inhaling drugs,” Larkin said.
“They are safer if they're close to the site because someone will find them if they need emergency response.”
Larkin and Blyth emphasized the need for a new site to include an inhalation room, noting the BC Coroners Service data that has consistently shown in recent years that more people are dying from smoking drugs than injection use.
Added Larkin: “There are some people who unfortunately don't understand that these services actually promote public safety. They promote community health and wellness, they decrease the folks’ need and reliance for public spaces. They decrease litter, they increase access and pathways to care.”
'Compassion fatigue'
The current site, which is located in a highrise near Emery Barnes Park, was controversial prior to it being approved in October 2020, with more than 100 people addressing the previous council over concerns related to street disorder and public safety.
A mobile van service served the area prior to council’s approval.
Since the site opened in March 2021, councillors say they have received complaints about people camped outside the facility, open drug use and discarded needles on the street and in the park.
Documents posted on the city’s website confirm the concerns. Here’s an excerpt of a July 2023 letter included in a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The person’s name is redacted.
“I am a Yaletown homeowner and do not feel that the city has taken into consideration the negative effects this site has had on our neighbourhood and the well-being of the residents,” the author wrote.
“Compassion fatigue has replaced empathy. The increased crime, damages, graffiti, needles, garbage, and tents — not to mention the ever present visible drug use and its effects on the people using — is both frustrating and disheartening. Where are our rights to a safe and clean community? I want to feel proud of my neighbourhood again?”
'Poisoned drug supply'
The letter was addressed to ABC Coun. Peter Meiszner, who wasn’t on council when the site was approved. But Meiszner has been clear he wouldn’t have granted the lease to VCH, reiterating Tuesday that his opposition shouldn’t be viewed as rejecting services for drug users.
“We don't want to see people become victims of the poisoned drug supply,” he said.
“There is a place for medically supervised overdose prevention sites within the health-care system in our city. But we certainly can't see a repeat of what happened at the Seymour site in terms of the impact on the neighbourhood.”
A resident of the neighbourhood for many years, Meiszner said the opening of the site in March 2021 brought “dramatic change,” with people camping outside the facility, along with a noticeable increase in garbage, needles and human feces.
“I want to see people get help, and I do support the sites,” he said. “I just want to see it run in a manner that doesn't have such a negative impact on the surrounding community.”
When Glacier Media visited the sidewalk outside the current site in July 2023, a regular user of the facility — a 32-year-old man named Hayden — said he was disappointed about the pending closure.
“More of us are going to be using out and about,” he said at the time, when asked where he will consume his drugs when the site closes. “It’s ridiculous, it’s silly to shut it down.”
