Advocates and people living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside rallied at Pigeon Park Wednesday against daily so-called “street sweeps,” which they say unfairly target the region’s homeless.
City of Vancouver engineering staff with support from Vancouver police regularly patrol the neighbourhood, gathering items from the sidewalks and removing them in dump trucks.
Advocates with the Stop the Sweeps Coalition say the sweeps “target, brutalize, and displace low-income residents of the DTES who rely on public space.”
The group produced a report in 2021, citing residents who alleged they “regularly” had crucial items ranging from survival gear and important documents to irreplaceable personal mementos taken.
Speaking to the rally, a DTES resident who identified herself as Sue claimed she’d seen city engineering staff treat homeless people on the street in dehumanizing ways on several occasions.
In one instance, she alleged crews “dumped” a sleeping woman out of a half tent.
“She was sound asleep and dumped her right on the sidewalk. And they took it and everything she owned and left her sleeping on the sidewalk … she wasn’t even completely dressed,” she said.
In another case, she claimed crews took the wheelchair from a man with an amputated leg who was sleeping on a cardboard box on the sidewalks.
“The engineers asked him to move and he didn’t move fast enough, they took his wheelchair and threw it in the back of the dump truck … he was treated like garbage.”
Organizer Dave Hamm with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users called the street sweeps unconstitutional based on the seizure and destruction of personal property.
“The mandate of these folks and this specific unit is to dismantle and to displace the homes and belongings of people who reside on the streets of the Downtown Eastside,” he said.
“This happens every single day in the Downtown Eastside.”
Hamm urged residents to attend a city council meeting on June 22, when COPE Coun. Jean Swanson will introduce a motion aimed at ending the sweeps.
Swanson’s motion proposes to have city staff work with DTES community groups to come up with alternatives to the practice, such as expanding community-led sidewalk cleaning programs and investing in low-barrier storage options and garbage disposal facilities.
In a statement, the City of Vancouver said crews are trained to only take abandoned items, and not “items that are clearly personal belongings.”
“For the past 3 months, City staff have been meeting with the community including VANDU, Pivot and people with lived experience on these issues,” it said.
“The Engineering Services Department, who oversee the street cleaning work, have been part of these meetings which aim to develop long-term solutions to create a safe way for everyone to keep streets clear. We value the communities’ collaboration on this issue.”
Not everyone in the neighbourhood on Wednesday was receptive to the protesters’ demands.
Willie Morris, who told Global News she had previously been homeless, said the city was right to conduct the daily cleanups.
“They’re protesting trying to clean the damn street, take a look at all the garbage along the sidewalk,” she said.
“It’s just blocking everybody else’s way that want to walk down the sidewalk … They should clean the sidewalk before talking.”