The non-profit organization which operates the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is opening a new community-run day centre, offering drop-in services and recovery on demand.
OPS executive director Sarah Blyth said the Ashtrey Recovery Resource Centre at 450 East Hastings Street can seat 60 people and will provide essential services including washrooms, showers, laundry facilities, and healthy food – along with housing support and recovery-focused programs.
“It’s really hard to see people suffering in the way that they are and not actually being able to do what we want to do to help them, to get them off the street,” Blyth said ahead of the centre’s opening.
The Ashtrey is named after Trey Helten, who overcame addiction and spent years managing OPS and caring for the Downtown Eastside’s most vulnerable, before he died suddenly in April 2025 at age 42.
“It’s hard to replace Trey but were doing what we can,” Blyth told Global News.
The Ashtrey will prioritize recovery with space for Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and SMART Recovery meetings, and access to “meaningful recovery support.”
Ken Fellowes, who is recovering from addiction through Together We Can, said he doesn’t know where he’d be without the OPS recovery navigator support system Helten was instrumental in creating.
“I started using crack cocaine when I was thirteen down on the east side here,” Fellowes told Global News in an interview.
Now 46, and following numerous stints in and out of recovery and “lots of relapses”, Fellowes said he’s been clean and sober for almost five months.
“Trey (Helten) was actually a big inspiration,” Fellowes said. “I just decided at one point, enough is enough, I wanted to change my life.”
With Helten always checking up on him and taking him to meetings, and another recovery navigator also helping, Fellowes said he was able to find recovery.
“I was in a spot of despair but I had enough, it is possible,” he said. “I can see that there is light at the end of the tunnel – life gets better and I’m grateful.”
“I’ve been on the other side of things so I know how it is,” said SMART Recovery facilitator Celina Alec.
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Alec leads meetings in SMART Recovery, the leading self-empowering addiction recovery support group, according to Vancouver Coastal Health.
The 4-Point Program, which Alec describes as a science-based approach to recovery, offers specific tools and techniques including building and maintaining motivation, coping with urges, managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and living a balanced life.
“I can see the change inside of them (the participants) each time they come to my meetings – which is really great,” Alec told Global News.
Blyth said two experienced ‘recovery navigators’ will help connect individuals with detox and treatment services – including immediate access to a dedicated detox bed at Together We Can.
“Unfortunately, it took me getting into trouble to find my way to treatment,” said recovery navigator Hali Hoben. “It’s super challenging.”
Hoben got out of addiction two and a half years ago, and said the system is very complicated to maneuver for someone who is unhoused and severely addicted.
Most individuals struggling with substance use don’t have phones or homes he said, and so it’s difficult for them to find the people they need to connect with to take the steps to find recovery, and then follow through on those steps.
Since the OPS recovery navigator program launched about 18 months ago, Hoben has been helping link others with the services he didn’t know how to access when he was in the depths of addiction, and then supporting them through the process so they don’t feel alone.
“Ultimately, you know that there is hope if you work the program, whatever that program may be, the program can work for you – I’m living proof,” Hoben told Global News. “I have people come up to me often and tell me that I’m a mentor to them, that I give them hope just from seeing me healthy and being able to do good things.”
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Provincially appointed Downtown Eastside (DTES) advisor Larry Campbell got a preview of the Ashtrey Recovery Resource Centre during a tour for community partners on Tuesday.
“They have a space in there for addiction counselling that they’re very successful with and they have the ability to allow people to come in out of the heat and come out of the cold,” Campbell told Global News in an interview. “It’s a nice space, I like it. I think she’s (Sarah Blyth’s) going to do very well.”
The former Vancouver mayor and Canadian senator has been tasked with bringing people together to find solutions for the Downtown Eastside, including advancing efforts toward multi-government co-operation on housing in the neighbourhood.
On March 31, the B.C. government announced Campbell’s six-month contract was being extended for another six months to allow him to continue to make progress addressing core issues and planning for long-term change in the area.
Campbell has previously said Blyth’s organization is an open book in terms of providing data and numbers about its work.
“I think that without measurable results we can’t move forward, we don’t know what we really need or what are we doing that isn’t working,” the DTES advisor said Tuesday. “More and more, there’s a recognition that there has to be some form of measurement that we can gauge moving forward.”
The Ashtrey Recovery Resource Centre will open on July 6.
Blyth said Helten was a friend to everyone in the DTES, and if he were still here, he’d be helping people.
“I think he would be really proud of us that we continued the work that he was doing,” she said Tuesday.
The new space at 450 East Hastings Street is funded by B.C.’s health ministry, and Blyth said services previously provided by the DTES Emergency Supply Hub at 144 East Hastings Street have been moved to the Ashtrey.
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