It has been six weeks since Vancouver police announced ‘Task Force Barrage,’ a $5-million initiative to flood the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside with patrol officers and crack down on gangs and organized retail theft.
Police say the initiative is working, recently touting the seizure of nearly 200 weapons and reporting a significant drop in assaults in the area.
But what do those in the neighbourhood think of the initiative?
“We feel more safe everywhere — I have too many tourists, they come in before, and they talk about the street is not too safe. Now it’s way safer and clean,” said Saher Bahee, a barber at Habibi Barber Shop.
Bahee said he’s noticed an uptick in police presence in recent weeks. Officers, he said, have regularly stopped into the shop to ask if they need anything.
It’s something he said he’d like to see continue, especially with the World Cup coming next year.
When he announced the program in February, Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer said the geographically tiny Downtown Eastside was responsible for 30 per cent of the city’s violent crime and 48 per cent of all shootings.
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The task force, he said, would be three-pronged. Police would boost patrols at the street level, would assign more resources to “complex and coordinated investigations” targeting organized crime groups, and would build new partnerships to address “social needs” in the community.
He insisted the initiative would not target people struggling with drug or mental health issues or “everyday residents” of the neighbourhood.
Residents Global News spoke with on Thursday said they felt the approach was working.
“It certainly cleaned the streets up, I know that. There’s not everyone sitting around bitching and smoking and all that,” resident Cindy Crawford said.
“And it’s slowed down the drug dealing, I know that. I feel safer knowing there’s probably a policeman around the corner or something.”
Local Michael Raglione said he has felt safe walking on the streets at night for the first time “in a long time.”
“I love to walk at night. But when you can’t walk at night and it’s scary, you feel like somebody is going to jump you or take whatever little you have — this is not good,” he said.
“Seeing the cops that are patrolling the streets, I am grateful for that, they are not our enemies.”
Landon Hoyt, executive director of the Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Association (BIA) said his group is happy to see police going after some of the high-level criminal groups in the area.
But he said the intense focus on the DTES has simply pushed some of the area’s problems into other neighbourhoods.
“In some ways, we are playing a bit of a whack-a-mole game. We have seen some positive results in the core areas, but we are seeing some of the issues just spreading throughout the city,” he said.
Hoyt said his members have reported an uptick in crime and encampments in the outskirts of the BIA, something he has heard from neighbouring BIAs as well.
“What I really would like to see is some better coordination between the city, the province and the health authority in providing mental health outreach, housing access, addiction treatment resources, that sort of thing, alongside this,” he said.
“I know that is not the intention of the VPD here. I want to give them credit where credit is due, but we just need to see the same level of service met throughout the city.”
The task force is slated to run for at least six months.
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