A cultural support worker who found sobriety in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) believes the harm reduction model needs to be replaced with a new approach that will get people the help they need to overcome addiction.
Rivers Stonechild, who was raised in the DTES, said the mayor’s plan to transform the troubled area by prioritizing accountability, recovery and public safety is a start.
Under the current system, Stonechild said drug users, many of whom have complex mental health issues, are stealing to support their substance use disorders and getting caught in a vicious cycle with no support.
“It’s like a never-ending revolving door,” said Stonechild. “You see people that are not in their right minds doing what they need to do to survive right, so it’s frustrating, it’s heartbreaking and some sort of change needs to occur.”
Mental health issues need to be addressed with proper supports, he said, while a model such as “reduced use” or allowing drug use with the overall goal of sobering up – needs to take the place of harm reduction.
“I feel like it’s a big moneymaker right, and I feel we need to kind of start to funnel that those funds into other social programs that’ll help to create some sort of significant change for the people,” Stonechild told Global News in an interview Monday.
Ken Sim has promised to break what he calls the “poverty industrial complex” in the DTES, where for too long he said, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent without delivering meaningful change.
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“We’re going to ensure that the people who live here get the support they deserve in a place that’s built to help them succeed,” the mayor said Thursday as he and Police Chief Adam Palmer announced a new $5 million plan to crack down on gangs and crime in the area.
“I think it would be well received,” said Stonechild. “I think there (are) probably a lot of people out there that are profiting off the poverty and the issues, the social problems that are happening within our community.”
Stonechild, who was born in Denver, Colorado in 1980 after his mother left southern Saskatchewan to find work, has a unique perspective.
While his mother struggled with substance use, Stonechild said his father was a bad alcoholic and he witnessed a lot of violence before his parents separated in 1983.
When his mother remarried, they decided to move to Vancouver, and settled in the DTES in 1988.
Stonechild’s first home was at the Empress Hotel, where years later, his uncle would die from fentanyl poisoning.
“I remember as a kid looking out the window and looking down the streets,” he recalled.
Growing up, Stonechild remembers eating cereal and other cheap meals with his mother at the Alexander Street building which currently houses the WISH Drop-In Centre Society.
Even as she recovered from heroin addiction, he said his mother kept them together.
“She did her best with the tools she had,” Stonechild said.
To cope with his early childhood trauma, Stonechild said he started drinking in his early teens.
Alcohol and drugs made him feel at ease, he said.
After battling alcoholism and then falling into addiction following the birth of his first son when he was 21, Stonechild said he eventually found sobriety and culture in the community.
“Having an idea of who I was and knowing where I came from, who my people were, that offered a really good cultural foundation,” Stonechild recounted. “I was able to have that connection of knowing that I was an Anishinaabe person from southeast Saskatchewan.”
In his work to improve people’s lives in supportive housing, Stonechild said he’s inspired by his residential school survivor parents – both of whom achieved recovery.
His mother, Lulu Mae Ramirez, was sober when she died of cancer in 2021.
His father, Terence Stonechild, was a week shy of his two-year sobriety when he was murdered in south Minneapolis in 2003.
“Without them going through those type of hardships, I don’t think I would be where I’m at and have the insight that I do now,” said Stonechild.
With programming in place at the time including youth workers, substance abuse management and the camaraderie of AA meetings, Stonechild said he was able to make meaningful change in his life.
“But as time goes on and policies and procedures and stuff like that in the community change, I think that it needs to change again in order for our people in this community – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to be able to find some sort of recovery.”
Nine years into his recovery, Stonechild said the fentanyl crisis, which has personally impacted his family, also motivates him to give back.
“I just want to be able to give hope to people that if I can do it, you can do it too,” Stonechild told Global News.
While watching his two sons, aged 12 and 24, grow up, Stonechild said he’s eager to learn more about Sim’s proposed policy shifts.
“Maybe we could see some lasting change that could impact the community for the better.”
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