Amid the displacement Friday on day three of the city of Vancouver’s structure removal on East Hastings Street, we found Jody, who declined to provide her last name, slumped on the sidewalk in front of the BC Housing building on Hastings Street at Gore Avenue.
“I feel like I’m dispensable,” she told Global News in an interview.
Jody, who said she lives on disability and uses illicit drugs to numb her chronic pain, said she feels ignored — despite the millions spent annually on the Downtown Eastside.
“We can’t get pushed any farther to the docks,” Jody said as she fought back tears.
For decades, money from all levels of government has flowed in to the blocks surrounding Hastings and Main streets, funding services for the most vulnerable.
“I think homelessness is a big business here,” John Henry told Global News as he packed up his tent on Thursday.
Henry, who said he moved west from Alberta last June, has found it easy to live on the Downtown Eastside.
“The activists and everything or whomever, they’re handing out gourmet meals in tents.”
When asked whether the current model of service delivery was helping those in need or simply sustaining poverty, BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said, “We are helping a lot of people in fact, often the people who have gotten out and gotten into market rent or moved or come back to their communities, their stories don’t get told.”
“Things are getting worse,” said Jody, who said the area is in desperate need of adequate housing.
Five months ago, B.C.’s premier said he had not seen the Downtown Eastside look worse, and announced a new approach.
The province, David Eby said, would be taking over the coordination of service delivery with the first step being an immediate plan to end the Hastings encampment.
“There’s a reason why no government has ever stepped up and put their hand up, because it is a real challenge,” Kahlon told Global News Friday.
After months of working along East Hastings to address fire, life and safety concerns identified by the July 25, 2022 fire chief’s order to immediately remove structures, city crews supported by police moved in Wednesday to begin decampment.
Citing escalating public safety and fire risks, city officials said they needed to bring the encampment to a close.
As of Friday afternoon, Kahlon said 56 people had moved from the Hastings encampment, while another 20 individuals who asked for housing were now in shelters.
Vancouver city councillor Pete Fry said people in precarious situations need resources now — and cannot wait years for new permanent housing to be designed, deliberated, approved and constructed.
“We need to recognize that the shelter system’s not working, the SROs, we’re losing them at a rapid rate, they’re unsustainable and they’re uninhabitable in many cases,” Fry said in an interview Friday.
“So we need some immediate solutions.”
BC’s Ministry of Housing said a new Community Connections Hub will be set up in the Downtown Eastside so people have a centralized place to access referrals and information about housing and services.
Kahlon said he expects the Orange Hall facility to open within two weeks.
Occupancy permits have also been received for 95 supportive housing units, said Kahlon, who expects people will start moving in next week.
“I don’t think that the dollars are being spent properly and you know, I fear to even say that,” Jody said.
The province’s long-term strategy also includes tracking Downtown Eastside spending and outcomes.
“People think that life on disability, oh look they don’t work look at them they just want a handout, they want this, they want that — no, I would do anything to be a productive member of society again,” Jody told Global News.
Editor’s note: An earlier version, based on information from B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon, stated that the first of the province’s two long-delayed navigation centres will open in the Downtown Eastside in the coming weeks. The housing ministry has since confirmed that Orange Hall will not be one of the two navigation centres, and will instead be a new Community Connections Hub.
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