Plan pushes overdose crisis, homelessness into spotlight
A new plan that calls for a greater government investment in the Downtown Eastside — at a time when overdose deaths remain high and the homelessness crisis continues — has been sent to the leaders of the main political parties as well as candidates in six key Vancouver ridings.
The hope, said Dr. Bill MacEwan, a psychiatrist who has worked for two decades in the Downtown Eastside, was to push drug and mental health treatment onto the front stage of a campaign dominated by the COVID pandemic and the ailing economy.
“I would like it to have had a larger role, but I understand that there's other issues that are dominating everyone's view,” he said. “The worry I have is that people are thinking this is too difficult, too contentious an area. ... But it is a very, extremely doable plan and can achieve a lot if we're given the opportunity to do it.”
The plan was created by the Building Community Society, a group that also includes former premier and Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt as well as policy-makers with decades of experience in the Downtown Eastside.
Postmedia first wrote about their proposal this summer, but now that the plan has been finalized it was sent to the candidates a week ago in an effort to spark campaign conversations about two key issues: 127 people fatally overdosed in September, a death toll that is down from the summer months but more than double last September's tally, and homelessness continues to be a concern in Vancouver's Strathcona tent city and across B.C.
The group's plan, titled the “Right to Health and Housing,” would focus on 300 people with such severe mental illness and addictions that they are unable to access available housing or treatment, and are therefore responsible for a disproportionately high number of emergency room visits, court appearances and interactions with police.
MacEwan was hopeful whoever forms government would embrace these ideas, noting the NDP brought in cutting-edge responses to the overdose crisis, while the Liberals when in power established successful Foundry centres for youth mental health.
Vancouver-Hastings NDP candidate Niki Sharma, who received the proposal, said in an email to Postmedia that she had “great respect” for the people behind the plan — but stopped short of fully endorsing it.
“We know there are a smaller group of people with particularly complex mental health and addiction challenges that need more intensive care in order to remain successfully housed,” she wrote.
She said a re-elected NDP government would invest in more mobile teams that provide on-theground mental health services to vulnerable people, as well as more “complex care” housing with psychiatric services in places like the Riverview lands in Coquitlam.
Vancouver-Fairview Liberal candidate George Affleck said he agrees with the plan's call to revisit Vancouver's 2001 “Four Pillars Approach;” the report argues harm reduction has been successfully pursued, but the other three pillars — prevention, treatment and enforcement — have not.
“I think that our platform touches on some similar points related to mental health, addiction and housing” as the group's report, Affleck said in an email.
Green candidates Maayan Kreitzman in Vancouver-False Creek and Kelly Tatham in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant sent a joint statement saying they endorsed the Building Community Society's plan, highlighting calls for the provincial government to work more closely with health authorities, and to better monitor outcomes through shared data tracking.
The pair also called for an expansion of overdose prevention sites, something that has bubbled into the election campaign in Kreitzman's riding since the approval of a new site in Yaletown this week. Incumbent Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan is against the location, saying it is too close to a park.
MacEwan said his group will “relentlessly” pursue the next government about this plan.