In June and July, the FIFA 2026 world cup will come to the Vancouver. Along with this mega-event will come a heightened police presence, particularly within the 2km “bubble zone” of BC Place, which includes the Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver has passed a collection of “FIFA bylaws” that will increase the criminalization of activities ranging from street performance to displaying merchandise within the bubble zone. (P.O.W.E.R. has previously noted that this intensified policing can already be felt).

These events are taking place alongside a rapid defunding and shuttering of gender-specific and sex worker-led organizations in the city. With few spaces to rely on, we anticipate that street-based sex workers working in the DTES will be disproportionately impacted by law enforcement crackdowns during the FIFA “event period.” Notably, the City of Vancouver eliminated one of their two sex worker safety planner positions just months before the event period starts.

In response, a group of local sex workers and community workers are organizing direct mutual aid for sex workers working in the DTES during this period. This response will include:

• Hosting a “pop-up” drop-in space in the DTES on FIFA game days to offer sex workers reprieve from police surveillance and harassment

• Supply distribution and outreach on game days to ensure access to essential items and other supports

• Distributing micro-grants to workers negatively affected by FIFA-related displacement.

SWIFA aims to offer a short-term response during a period of heightened instability to offset some predicted increased violence against sex workers.

With support, SWIFA hopes to create a small ‘decriminalized’ zone where sex workers can access the resources they need to safely do their work!

Ways to support now:

• Donate $$ to the fundraiser: click here!

• If you have items to donate, such as: seasonal clothing, lingerie, shoes, makeup/accessories, cellphones and survival gear (tents, tarps, sleeping bags), head to SWIFA’s donation drive on April 18th from 12pm to 3PM at 647 East Hastings. Items should be in good condition —something you would give to a friend!

• Follow SWIFA’s social media for ongoing calls, particularly as law enforcement crackdowns ramp up as FIFA 2026 draws nearer!

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Background

Raising the alarm on gender-based violence in the DTES (zine)

For migrant sex workers, police are the ‘most dangerous gang’ in the business: Breach Media

Open Letter: Adopt more effective anti-trafficking approaches: SWAN

“I Know So Many Women That Have the Same Story as Mine:” How the Increase of Benzodiazepines in the Unregulated Drug Supply Shapes Experiences of Gender-Based Violence: Contemporary Drug Problems

Police drive violence in the unregulated drug and sex work markets: Drug Data Decoded

The protective association of social cohesion on sex workers’ experiences of violence and access to community support: Impacts of resource sharing, trust and connection: PLOS One

Red Women Rising report: Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre

Dispatch #9 Themes

1. Violence in city cells

   P.O.W.E.R. has received a number of alarming reports of acute violence experienced in city and holding cells. Footage from city and holding cells is notoriously difficult to retrieve and remains a space where Vancouver Police Department officers have physically assaulted community members, and faced no accountability. P.O.W.E.R. cannot underscore enough the disturbing nature of group VPD assaults that have been reported in city cells and in public space, leaving people with no recourse to seek justice, even within BC’s inadequate landscape of police “accountability” mechanisms.

2. Police shake downs of vendors at Main & Hastings

   The VPD are making their presence felt at Main and Hastings, regularly cracking down on vendors and violently displacing anyone hanging out near the intersection. The revival of street vendor crackdowns has been reported to P.O.W.E.R. more regularly in recent months, coinciding with the ongoing expansion of police power endorsed by Mayor Ken Sim and ABC. We anticipate that this kind of targeting will only increase in the lead up to the City of Vancouver hosting a mega-sporting event, with the first FIFA 2026 event kicking off at the end of April.

3. Red Zones

   Red zones/red listing are area restrictions enforced in two main ways in the DTES: 1) via behavioural conditions imposed by the court (through probation, etc.), or 2) informally through police officers threatening fines or charges against specific individuals. During outreach, P.O.W.E.R. has heard about an uptick of the latter. Impacts of area restrictions can range from specific sites to multi-block radiuses, and can include impeding someone from accessing critical harm reduction services, community spaces, and sometimes, even their housing. This is a commonly exercised tactic by the carceral system which effectively splinters people from their communities and support networks. This also acts as a driver of gentrification and disappearing poor people out of the DTES.

4. Police officers attending routine overdose events
   P.O.W.E.R. members have increasingly experienced, witnessed, and received reports on VPD officers attending and interfering with routine overdose events. The VPD’s internal policy since 2016 has been non-attendance at routine overdose events. This non-attendance policy is in recognition that the risk of criminalization can deter people from calling for an emergency medical response. Read more about P.O.W.E.R.’s calls for cops out of overdose response here.

5. Sedatives in the supply
   Unpredictable concentrations and different types of sedatives continue to show up in the criminalized drug supply. This includes the emergent Medetomidine, which, when used unknowingly or in higher than intended amounts, can lead to intense vomiting, as well as cardiac and respiratory suppression. Losing consciousness for a prolonged period of time is increasingly common, and can have serious health and social (e.g., increased incidences of gender-based violence) impacts. Check on your neighbours!

Newsletter highlights

As part of P.O.W.E.R.’s work against carceral housing expansion, the group recently released a report on current conditions in supportive, transitional, and SRO housing, as well as a short video (in collaboration with Dogwood BC) on the non-profit landlord and government attack on supportive housing. On the same day that our report was released, BC Housing Minister Christine Boyle tabled Bill 11, a deadly piece of legislation that, if passed, will consolidate state and landlord powers to lockout and evict tenants on the basis of having a weapon (undefined term), guest possession of a weapon – even before going through the Residential Tenancy Branch processes.

The first peer-reviewed study using data collected, analyzed and authored by P.O.W.E.R. was published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

P.O.W.E.R. in media

• Filter magazine: In Vancouver’s DTES, Harm Reduction Moves Forward Without Decrim

• Peace Arch News: Advocates urge Province to halt Bill 11, citing threats to tenant safety and rights

• The Philanthropist: What happens to labour rights in a sector built on care?

• Filter magazine: In British Columbia, Drug Policy Rollbacks Are Limiting HIV Care

• CBC News: Toxic drug deaths in 2025

Community activity

P.O.W.E.R. members Paul, Harley, and Molly presented at the FIFA townhall hosted by the Carnegie Housing Project, alongside other community groups such as SWAN, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and Pivot Legal Society. P.O.W.E.R. members shared the patterns of criminalization the group has seen as of late. Members focused on impacts felt in the DTES community, as well as anticipated policing practices, trends and tactics that are characteristic of mega-sporting events.

P.O.W.E.R. hosted an event during the Vines Art Society and Joint Effort collaborative art exhibit in March, which featured pieces by currently and previously incarcerated kin and community members. P.O.W.E.R. presented themes from our first 15 months of community-led reporting and reflections on resisting rising carcerality. Big thank you to Alicia Williams for opening the event and making bannock!

New research feat. P.O.W.E.R. members

International Journal of Drug Policy: Confiscations, public health obstructions, and perpetual displacement: Experiences and perspectives on urban law enforcement practices during a period of “recriminalization” among people who use criminalized drugs

University of Toronto Press: Changing the System: Steps Towards Empowering Community Governance of Research Ethics in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver

Earlier this month, BC housing minister Christine Boyle tabled legislation that would weaken protections in the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) for people in “supportive housing” units.

If passed, Bill 11 – or the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act – would give the housing minister and government cabinet permanent powers to make changes to existing RTA protections for supportive housing without having to pass them through the legislature.

Bill 11 would formalize a sub-categorization of tenancy rights for people in “supportive housing” across BC. This proposed categorization sets up supportive housing landlords to “restrict access” to tenants from their own unit prior to going through the Residential Tenancy Board (or any other judicial process).

This effectively means landlords could ban residents from supportive housing premises with broad discretion — even prior to a landlord’s allegation going through arbitration.

The legislation creates a new clause that permits supportive housing landlords and managers to end an eviction based on a suspicion that a tenant or any of their guests “has been” in the possession of a weapon. Neither a retroactive time limit on this possession, nor “weapon” are defined within the Act. (A participant in a P.O.W.E.R. study reported having his pliers seized by police after they deemed them a weapon, for example).

The bill also creates an exemption for the confiscation of personal property by landlords from renters’ individual units, by creating an exemption for “seizure of any personal property of a tenant” within supportive housing units.

Because Bill 11 provides current and future housing ministers and cabinet sweeping powers to make changes to “supportive housing,” landlord powers could expand further without any legislative oversight.

Bill 11 has not passed yet. To read in full: click here. | Housing Minister Christine Boyle can be emailed here: christine.boyle.mla@leg.bc.ca

WATCH: P.O.W.E.R. members discuss tenancy rights and conditions in supportive housing.

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BACKGROUND

Housing in crisis: A qualitative study of the socio-legal contexts of residential evictions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: International Journal of Drug Policy

Housing, homeless & carcerality in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: Our Homes Can’t Wait

Increases in housing rules and surveillance during COVID-19: impacts on overdose and overdose response in Vancouver: Harm Reduction Journal

CLAS and Pivot Condemn Province’s Continued Rollback of Tenant Protections: Pivot Legal Society

The Social Housing Tenants Fighting for Renter Protections: The Tyee

It has been revealed that the Ontario government plans to defund and shutter remaining provincially-funded safe consumption sites (SCS) by June — during an ongoing toxic drug crisis.

This follows Ontario’s passing of Bill 223 in 2024, which restricted where a SCS can legally operate in the province.

In a press conference, a number of Ontario-based community leaders – including from the HIV Legal Network, Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction, and Toronto Overdose Prevention Society – condemned the closures.

Dayn Kent, the former manager of Regent Park consumption site in Toronto, which was shut down under Bill 223, shared that Regent Park saw roughly 850 unique individuals per year, supervised 6,000 injections and completed 6,500 service referrals in 2023 and 2024.

Kent was one of many speakers who illustrated how SCS can reduce the strain on the healthcare system.

Dr. Sarah Griffiths, an Ontario-based emergency physician, described how the ever shifting drug supply complicates overdose response, “These overdoses take hours to respond to…and without safe places to be monitored, [people] will be in our incredibly busy emergency departments.”

A former service user of Toronto’s Moss Park SCS, Akosua Gyan-Mante, shared her experience with SCS, “You can’t understand the feeling of being so alone and coming to a place where people love you for you. When everybody else passes you by and doesn’t give you another look, all of these people come to this place for safety and love.”

Gyan-Mante contrasted this with Ford’s approach, “We are sticking people all together, and just leaving them there to die…just leaving them in very poor conditions to die.”

These same political logics are playing out across Canada – while drug war panic is being pushed by policing organizations and other benefactors of the status quo.

Today, P.O.W.E.R., the Surrey Union of Drug Users and Care Not Cops endorse and amplify the condemnation of SCS closures made by our colleagues in Ontario.

Pete Woodrow, a long-time community leader and board member of SUDU says, “The struggles that we’ve had, the moves that we made, it’s like every day we wake up and something new is being taken away from us. We fought for the smallest smidgen of progress, and now it’s being taken away in Ontario, without even consulting anyone.”

“This is creating hopelessness. We saw this 10 years ago. We already know what’s going to happen, I lost a lot of people 10 years ago. OPS [overdose prevention sites] brings community, it gives us a space to come together and be together and they’re taking that away.”

In January, Vancouver lost its only overdose prevention site in the city-centre area (outside of a hospital). City centre is one of the regions in BC that saw the most people die by overdose in 2025. BC’s response to the toxic drug emergency has been described as inadequate by the province’s Auditor General, while the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner has taken the position that the ongoing crisis is a human rights violation.

Surrey – three times the geographical size as Vancouver – still has just one supervised consumption site.

The public health evidence for SCS is unequivocal – three decades of evaluations show that the intervention saves lives, particularly the lives of people who make up the margins of traditional public health modeling, while also contributing to the reduction of other neighbourhood-level social issues, such as reductions in crime.

“They just want us to crawl into the fucking sewers. Out of sight out of mind bullshit,” says Nathan, a board member with SUDU.

Elder Mona Woodward, the president of SUDU, calls the planned SCS closures “a death sentence.”

The Ford government, of course, knows all this – and non-SCS social services have already reported increases in overdoses at their sites in Ontario since the passing of Bill 223. This can only imply that Ford’s government has made the decision to interfere with people’s right to life and security of the person – just as community leaders in Ontario expressed during their presser.

Harley Ransom, a board member of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society and P.O.W.E.R. member grew up in Ontario and worries about his home community, “My buddy in rural Ontario — they drive around to all the small towns and hand out harm reduction which is well needed also got their funding cut. Now I grew up here so no one understands more than me how much this is needed to help fight the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.”

“The state cannot police its way out of a toxic drug supply crisis. Supervised consumption sites keep people alive. For decades, people who use drugs and co-collaborators have fought to build spaces where those deemed disposable can survive and exist with the dignity they deserve,” says Heather Tunold, a community harm reduction educator and member of Care Not Cops.

She adds, “Shutting down supervised consumption sites during an ongoing toxic drug crisis is a deliberate dismantling of care — and a clear signal that our kin are considered unworthy of life, care, and liberty.”

While both Ontario and BC’s governments continue to do nothing to undercut the toxic supply – or worse, such as crackdown on criminalized drug markets through raids and seizures, which makes the drug supply even less predictable – they are now forcing life-saving interventions to shutter their doors.

From BC, we see ourselves among our friends and kin in Ontario impacted by the toxic drug crisis, and in collective resistance to a state sanctioned massacre against the public. We grieve thousands, and we resist in their spirit.

BACKGROUND

• Safe Consumption is a Labour Issue: Workers Call for the Reversal of Deadly SCS Closures: CUPE Ontario & other labour organizations

• Colonial Policing in a Drug Crisis: How Bill 6 and Bill 223 Endanger Lives: Amnesty & Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction Network

• Safety for Whom? Ontario’s War on Safe Consumption Sites is No Act of Care: Yellowhead Institute

• ‘It’s our safe sanctuary’: Experiences of using an unsanctioned overdose prevention site in Toronto: International Journal of Drug Policy

• Harm reduction activists have our trust; without their activism, we would all be left to die: Drug Data Decoded

• Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on supervised consumption service delivery in Vancouver and Surrey: Discover Public Health

• Supervised safe consumption sites — lessons and opportunities for North America: The Lancet Regional Health

• Paramedic calls for suspected drug overdoses nearly double in Sudbury: CBC News

• Not So Simple: The impact of simple drug possession and trafficking offences on health equity: HIV Legal Network

• Brief report on pop-up OPS: Surrey Union of Drug Users
  
  

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P.O.W.E.R. has received an increasing number of reports related to the carceral conditions governing non-profit or privately managed buildings that make up much of the housing landscape in the DTES, including so-called “supportive housing” buildings.

These reports come on the heels of changes to the low-income housing landscape across Vancouver, including the recently approved DTES Rezoning plan (“Uplifting the DTES”), Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) amendments, and multiple closures of Single Room Occupancy buildings (SROs) and supportive housing along Granville Street.

Between September and December 2025, P.O.W.E.R. conducted an outreach campaign to speak to people directly about their experiences in “supportive” housing. P.O.W.E.R. members handed out more than 350 Know Your Rights zines, set up housing information booths in the DTES, and connected with people directly about their current housing conditions.

As part of this outreach, we also developed a short survey to build a more cohesive understanding of supportive housing tenants’ experiences and their ideas around ideal housing futures amid heightened precarity. Below, we outline our survey results, as well as some of the conversations we had during this period.

Background

SRO and supportive housing environments have been repeatedly characterized as having heightened surveillance, limited tenancy rights, and unsafe infrastructure, with many residents having to contend with rampant pest problems, mold, broken elevators, and unsanitary conditions.

Non-profit “supportive housing” providers play a central role within the broader carceral continuum in the city, both through their direct integration of police, health, and social service agencies in their daily operations, as well as the strict restrictions they place on tenants through coercive “program agreements” enforced by building management and staff.

In 2024, the province formally changed the RTA to further reduce tenants’ protections in supportive housing. These changes stripped tenants of their rights, including restrictions on their guests, no required for landlord entry, and no right to quiet enjoyment.

Under the guise of “safety” the province (in collaboration with non-profit landlords) have recently threatened to take this one step further by removing supportive housing from the RTA entirely. While the RTA already offers inadequate protections, a policy shift like this would exempt supportive housing landlords from having to adhere to the RTA altogether, potentially giving staff and management ultimate power over tenants’ housing. This threat is occurring against the backdrop of a recently approved rezoning plan in the DTES, which is intended to speed up gentrification in the area by reducing the number of affordable housing options.

Community response to current housing conditions

With so-called supportive housing under attack tenants were eager to share their experiences in supportive housing with P.O.W.E.R. What became clear through our conversations is that, while non-profit landlords and policymakers have evoked notions of figurative ‘problem tenants’ to justify sweeping changes to supportive housing rights, these issues are a product of a broken system that has rarely prioritized building integrity or tenant safety and well-being.

Five central themes regarding the current state of supportive housing emerged from our community surveys.

Surveillance

Speaking to the carceral conditions inside supportive housing, a majority of respondents reported feeling surveilled in their building and more than half observed building staff collaborating with police. In one instance, a respondent was told by staff to “call the police” when trying to resolve a maintenance issue, highlighting how embedded staff-police relationships often are.

Tenants repeatedly spoke to the way that building infrastructure such as CCTV cameras in the hallways and elevators or inaccessible video monitors in management offices, as well as building practices such as staff entering their suites without consent, made them feel powerless and uncomfortable in their own homes. In some cases, respondents reported moving outdoors in order to avoid the constant scrutiny.

Lack of supports

Under the vague banner of “supportive housing,” multiple respondents noted that a lack of staff training around overdose response or first aid put their health and safety at risk. Many questioned how their building was even categorized as “supportive” given the lack of staff responsiveness to health or safety emergencies.

Improved staff training was the number one suggestion made by respondents when asked how they would improve their building conditions, with one respondent telling us, “I feel like I have to scream to be heard by anyone.”

Lack of essential safety

In line with this, over half of respondents stated that there was insufficient access to harm reduction supplies or supports within their building. One respondent told us that their building didn’t have naloxone available to tenants, while another described that there had been three overdoses in their building in the last week and that staff “did nothing,” forcing tenants to respond.

In addition, almost half of respondents felt that their buildings had “significant” guest restrictions. This was flagged as making residents especially vulnerable to overdose amid the worsening drug supply. To date, roughly 85 per cent of overdose deaths have occurred in indoor, private residences.

Conditions of “supportive housing” infrastructure

Building maintenance and hygiene was another issue flagged by respondents. Deplorable housing conditions that included bug or mice infestations, infections stemming from unsanitary conditions, and buildings that were “falling apart” were described as normal. Almost all respondents stated that their management was very slow to respond to maintenance issues, including those that were detrimental to tenant safety.

One respondent spoke about how their sink had been broken for several months, leaving them without running water in their suite. Multiple different people told us that the elevators in their building hadn’t been working consistently for years, with no urgency amongst management to fix the issue. In one instance, a respondent described how the lack of elevator access left his neighbour with mobility limitations “trapped” in his suite.

(In)access to justice

While most respondents spoke to the issues they saw within their buildings, very few were aware that they had any rights under the RTA. Only two of the tenants we met reported taking their tenancy issues to the Residential Tenancy Branch with one reporting it as being an overwhelmingly bad experience.

When asked about the potential changes in removing supportive housing from the RTA almost all responded negatively, noting how it will reinforce already unequal power dynamics.

“The RTA is discriminating, it wasn’t even being upheld anyways so now changes will give them even more legal reasons to evict us,” described one tenant, while another stated: “This is stupid, we are losing more of our rights. If they got their way, they’d keep giving us an eviction notice.”

Suggested improvements for supportive housing amid an uncertain future

Removing supportive housing from the RTA would only worsen already chaotic housing environments by giving landlords full control over supportive housing with zero safeguards for tenants. A move like this, in combination with the DTES Rezoning plan, leaves tenants in an extremely vulnerable position with few alternative housing options and even fewer opportunities for recourse if faced with an eviction or landlord violence.

Rather than removing supportive housing from the RTA, tenants spoke to substantive short and long-term changes that would actually improve conditions within supportive housing.

Short-term changes to improve housing conditions

Respondents consistently discussed making meaningful upgrades to the buildings themselves. Tenants suggested imposing regulations to improve landlord responsiveness to basic repairs and building maintenance issues, including ensuring buildings are free of mold, pests, and other persistent health hazards, as well as maintaining 24/7 access to on-site overdose prevention sites and harm reduction supplies.

The elimination of arbitrary guest bans and restrictions, as well as other mechanisms of surveillance, was also repeatedly suggested. These kinds of rules amplified the feeling that tenants were under constant scrutiny and resulted in increased tenant isolation amid an ongoing drug toxicity crisis.

Lastly, respondents felt that supportive housing tenants should have a larger role in decision-making within their buildings. For example, tenants suggested the development of tenant-led housing models that were similar in structure to co-ops, or having tenant boards with significant input into day-to-day building operations.

Long-term changes to improve housing conditions

In addition to these more immediate improvements, respondents also spoke to the need for long-term structural changes to housing across the city. These changes revolved around upgrading city-wide housing regulations to ensure that all tenants have access to dignified housing.

A strong emphasis was placed on more diversity in housing options for low-income tenants, including independent and non-carceral buildings that exist outside of the “supportive” housing model. For example, some respondents wanted to see a move beyond housing managed exclusively by nonprofits, towards the development of publicly owned affordable (e.g., shelter rate) housing.

For those that hoped to remain in supportive housing, most articulated that they would like to see consistency in how supportive housing is defined and the development of a set of supportive housing standards that landlords are forced to adhere to. Access to supportive housing in neighbourhoods across the city was also identified as a key issue, with respondents suggesting the need for more housing to be built both within and outside of the DTES.

Marked changes to policy to improve the safety of those throughout the city were also seen as being integral to tenant well-being, such as ending drug prohibition and providing access to a safe and regulated drug supply.

Moving Forward

Those we spoke to made it clear that the city and province’s current approach to housing is not working. Tenants in supportive housing deserve the same access to safe, dignified, and affordable housing as do all other tenants. The 2024 changes to the RTA, which stripped away some tenancy rights within supportive housing, have only added to housing precarity, while the infrastructure of many of these building continues to deteriorate

The proposed removal of supportive housing from the RTA amid the fast-tracking of DTES gentrification will only increase the myriad forms of violence and carceral conditions already endured by supportive housing tenants. In order to improve the state of housing across the city, our conversations highlighted that supportive housing tenants must be recognized as experts in their own housing.

Peer-reviewed research conducted by P.O.W.E.R. has been published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. It is the first peer-reviewed research drawing on data collected through P.O.W.E.R.’s operations.

The research explores practices and behaviours of law enforcement toward people in Vancouver during the “recriminalization” period of British Columbia’s so-called decriminalization framework. Recriminalization refers to the May 2024 amendment that stopped BC’s decriminalization framework from applying in almost all outdoor space (up until the framework was allowed to expire last month).

P.O.W.E.R. previously commented on how the labyrinth of policy that made up BC’s short-lived decriminalization framework experiment was set up to fail the public.

In the newly published research, participants described not only confusion over the evolving decriminalization framework, but the ways in which criminalization persisted throughout the time the framework was implemented — the study focused on the Downtown Eastside.

Study participants described undocumented seizures of personal belongings, including possessions that are provided by other publicly-funded services, such as food and sterile drug use equipment.

Alarmingly, multiple participants brought attention to Vancouver Police Department officers physically blocking people from responding to overdoses in the community. (P.O.W.E.R. released previous statements about this form of obstruction from non-study participants).

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Study participants described how law enforcement practices contributed to processes of dehumanization. For example, one person perceived VPD practices this way:

“You could have your things stolen by the police, you could be physically harmed, you could be just made to look like less of a human, anything. Like, you just don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s that uncertainty, I think, that really puts people on edge and makes this division of the police and the public. There’s a reason why the public doesn’t like the police…it’s not just out of nowhere.”

You can read the full study by clicking here; and you can find all peer-reviewed research affiliated with P.O.W.E.R. by clicking here.

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Dispatch #8 Calls

Many themes recently highlighted in P.O.W.E.R. dispatches have continued unabated.

The toxic drug crisis continues to shift and adapt under prohibitionist approaches to managing the drug trade. This continues to have major impacts on our communities (read about recent emergency calls to overdoses and drug poisonings here); spaces that provided respite from gendered violence continue to shutter (read our statement here); and large groups of police officers continue to harass one or two people at a time (see examples in Dispatch #4).

Rather than highlight new themes in today’s Dispatch, P.O.W.E.R. has the following two calls:

1. Healthcare, frontline workers and everyone else, please continue to send in photos or other evidence of police presence at harm reduction or health sites to power@vandu.org.

2. If you have access to a space outside the Downtown Eastside, and might be interested in hosting a P.O.W.E.R. law enforcement incident reporting drop-in during the coming months—get in touch!

Two new reports

Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War and P.O.W.E.R. put together a brief research report that explores trends and emerging findings from P.O.W.E.R.’s first 79 community incident reports, along with other review, analysis and recommendations. The report was made publicly available earlier today.

Download the report:

Normalization of everyday police violence in the city

52.7MB ∙ PDF file

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P.O.W.E.R. joined tenants, housing justice groups, drug user groups, and healthcare organizations to put together a “Know-Your-Rights” guide to tenancy rights in so-called “supportive housing” and single room occupancy buildings.

Download the guide:

Know Your Rights in SROs and "supportive housing" buidlings

49.9MB ∙ PDF file

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Download

Newsletter highlights

P.O.W.E.R. analyzed the city’s then-proposed 2026 half-a-billion dollar Vancouver police budget. More than 600 people signed up to speak to council about the budget – we estimate that at least 85 per cent of speakers stated their opposition to the proposal…But Vancouver’s cop city council voted to approve it anyway.

P.O.W.E.R. released a statement from Harm Reduction Nurses Association and Doctors for Safer Drug Policy on the continued campaign among healthcare workers to refuse the BC NDP and Daniel Vigo’s expansions of forced treatment of substance users. Healthcare workers can join the growing refusal campaign here.

P.O.W.E.R. in media

• CBC News: Advocates gather against B.C. NDP’s involuntary treatment expansion

• The Mainlander: BC NDP aims to side-step another legal challenge to broaden the criminalization of mental health, substance use

• CTV News: Healthcare workers appeal to reopen wound care clinic in Downtown Eastside

• Radio-Canada: Soins involontaires, 300 travailleurs de la santé refusent d’appliquer la loi

• Vancity Lookout: What two votes tell us about competing priorities at city hall

• The Mainlander: Premier Eby hazardously misrepresents Sublocade while endorsing forced treatment of youth

• Drug Data Decoded: Court finds DULF guilty for compassion club “heralded as success”

Community activity

As gender-specific and sex worker drop-in and harm reduction sites continue to close across the city, P.O.W.E.R. organized a donation drive and distribution day offering essential winter survival gear, harm reduction supplies, women’s clothing, make-up, food, gift cards, and toiletries. P.O.W.E.R. was overwhelmed by the positive response we received from community, with many highlighting the significant gaps in material support left in the wake of these ongoing service closures. Keep an eye on P.O.W.E.R.’s Instagram for updates on future calls for donations and distribution events.

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P.O.W.E.R. co-hosted a press conference alongside Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy Vancouver, members of the Disability Justice Network of B.C., Weaving Our Worlds, and Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War against BC NDP expansions of involuntary treatment.

P.O.W.E.R. endorsed and consulted on a nurse and healthcare worker-led proposal to reinstate a defunded low-barrier wound care clinic in the DTES.

Two P.O.W.E.R. members presented at Gallery Gachet on Policing and Public Health in December.

P.O.W.E.R. members presented at the third annual Care Not Cops convergence. Members gave an overview of our work throughout the project’s first year of operation.

New research feat. P.O.W.E.R. members

Contemporary Drug Problems: “I Know So Many Women That Have the Same Story as Mine”: Exploring How the Increase of Benzodiazepines in the Unregulated Drug Supply Shapes Experiences of Gender-Based Violence Among Women and Gender Minorities in Vancouver

Harm Reduction Journal: What we need, not what we’re given: recommendations for action from young sex workers who use drugs

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p.s. relevant readings on the end of BC’s decriminalization framework:

• Union of BC Indian Chiefs: Deeply disappointed with B.C.’s decision to end decriminalization pilot and calls for return to a public health approach

• Globe and Mail: B.C. First Nations groups say they were shut out of decision to end drug decriminalization pilot

• Oak Bay News: ‘Policy kills’: Drug users advocacy group slams B.C. government reversal

• First Nations Health Authority: Statement on BC decriminalization pilot project

• (2025) BC Centre for Disease Control: Interactions with law enforcement: Harm Reduction Client Survey 2024

• (2024) International Journal of Drug Policy: Decriminalization or police mission creep?

• (2023) Crackdown Podcast: Some exceptions apply

• (2022) Pivot Legal Society: Inadequate threshold quantities will put people who use drugs in harm’s way

• (2021) Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users: The “Vancouver Model” of decriminalization will set a dangerous precedent for drug users

• (2021) HIV Legal Network: Brief on drug decriminalization and international law

• (2021) Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War & Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy Vancouver: Drug decriminalization without youth is not decriminalization

• (2020) Pivot Legal Society: ACT NOW! Decriminalizing drugs in Vancouver

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Tenants and members of POWER, the Surrey Union of Drug Users, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Our Homes Can’t Wait, Vancouver Tenants Union, Pivot Legal Society, Community Legal Assistance Society, Tenant Resource Advisory Centre and Kílala Lelum Health and Healing Cooperative have come together to resist ongoing pushes by the BC NDP to strip the rights of tenants living in SRO and so-called “supportive housing” buildings.

The new zine includes educational and advocacy information on the rights of tenants living in “supportive housing” under British Columbia’s Residential Tenancy Act. It also outlines some landlord responsibilities, while addressing frequently asked questions we have heard.

Download, print and distribute the free zine below!

Know Your Rights: SRO & "Supportive Housing" Zine

49.9MB ∙ PDF file

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Read our coalition’s October 2025 press release by clicking here.

Relevant readings and resources

CLAS: BC’s proposal to strip tenant rights in supportive housing is a betrayal to renters

Our Homes Can’t Wait report: Housing, homeless & carcerality in Vancouver’s downtown eastside

The Mainlander: Carceral tenancies in Vancouver

University of Victoria: The language of neglect: A critical discourse analysis of single room occupancy housing inspection reports

Harm Reduction Journal: Increases in housing rules and surveillance during COVID-19: impacts on overdose and overdose response in Vancouver

Gabrielle Peters, Amina Yasin and Karen Ward: Submission to the B.C. Government on Accessibility Legislation

We are Downtown Eastside community members, clinicians, harm reduction workers, pre-hospital care providers, researchers and healthcare staff affiliated with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association (HRNA/AIIRM), BC Nurses United for Social Justice, Devils Club Street Medics, Care Not Cops, Police Oversight with Evidence & Research (P.O.W.E.R) and the Vancouver Area Network Of Drug Users (VANDU). We are reaching out to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) with a shared goal: to work in partnership to re-establish a dedicated, low barrier wound care clinic in the DTES to improve access to healthcare, prevent avoidable harms and support wellness for residents.

Members of our coalition support neighbours and clients every day with wounds, burns and soft-tissue infections that are often made chronic or complex by structural and social conditions. Limited access to drop-in wound care, homelessness, bans from harm reduction spaces, unsafe living conditions, racism and discrimination in healthcare, untreated pain, and the rising cost of supplies all contribute to delayed treatment and worsening infections.

A welcoming, sanitary and judgement-free clinic where people can receive wound prevention education, timely assessment and routine care is essential for maintaining mobility, preventing hospitalizations and reducing the need for emergency interventions—particularly in the context of a toxic drug supply and an ongoing housing crisis.

For these reasons, we are asking VCH to reopen and expand Providence Health Care’s previously successful Mend and Tend wound clinic, formerly located at the Evelyne Saller Centre. Mend and Tend demonstrated strong outcomes and community trust—things that are urgently needed today.

Our coalition is developing a detailed proposal and would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with VCH leadership on a shared plan for reinstating and strengthening low barrier wound-care services in the neighbourhood by the end of 2026. DTES community members, including members of P.O.W.E.R. and VANDU, groups endorsing this proposal, have shared with us that they experience difficulty and exclusion when trying to work collaboratively with the programs currently operating in the clinical space we propose to use. They have stated they would welcome the opportunity to support the creation of a more low barrier service.

Re-opening Mend and Tend on the DTES would not only address a pressing local need—it could also serve as a model for other regions. With appropriate evaluation and shared learning, similar clinics could be created across BC to address widespread gaps in wound-care access. Our proposal has the confirmed support of a peer-led research group (P.O.W.E.R.), who have much of the infrastructure in place to support a community-based evaluation of the clinic.

We respectfully request that VCH explore allocating the resources needed to re-open this proven, community-trusted model of care. We look forward to the opportunity to work together to strengthen access, equity, and health outcomes for DTES residents.

Our coalition is inviting VCH to collaborate, plan and evaluate. We ask our readers in VCH positions to help bring our proposal onto the agenda to better ensure that a low barrier wound care service be brought back as soon as possible.

A downloadable/printable version of our call:

Low barrier wound care clinic: Release

2.99MB ∙ PDF file

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Joint statement from Harm Reduction Nurses Association and Doctors for Safer Drug Policy

British Columbia stands at a pivotal moment. The government’s proposals to expand the use of so-called “involuntary treatment”^[1] for substance use disorders is not a health intervention, it is a political response to fear, misinformation, and moral panic. As nurses, physicians, and allied health providers, we state clearly and unequivocally: we do not support this legislation, and we will not participate in involuntary treatment for substance use disorders.

This proposal contradicts our professional ethical obligations, undermines human rights, and will increase, not reduce, harm. We call on the Premier to withdraw this bill immediately and allow the current Charter challenge of BC’s Mental Health Act^[2] to proceed without political interference.

A Health and Human Rights Crisis Demands Evidence, Not Coercion

Since 2016, more than 17,000 people in BC have died from the toxic unregulated drug supply^[3]. Many more have faced the irreparable harms of hypoxic brain injury and long-term disability^[4]. Despite this scale of loss, the response to date has failed to reflect the urgency we apply to any other mass-fatality public health emergency.

Further, BC already overutilizes its Mental Health Act relative to other provinces. As noted by the Canadian Mental Health Association, “every year in BC, the Mental Health Act is used around 30,000 times to involuntarily detain individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use challenges – the highest rate of any province in Canada.”^[5] This is not an activity that we need to further facilitate, to the detriment of our patients.

The BC Human Rights Commissioner, in her November 2025 statement, was unequivocal: the toxic drug crisis is a human rights violation driven by toxic supply, structural inequities, and systemic discrimination, not by voluntary use of substances^[6]. She warns that involuntary treatment:

• Violates autonomy and self-determination;

• Disproportionately harms Indigenous, Black, disabled, gender-diverse, and low-income people;

• Lacks evidentiary support; and

• Cannot be justified when BC’s voluntary, community-based system is profoundly under-resourced.

The Commissioner states plainly that the government must first build a functional voluntary system before even contemplating expanded involuntary measures. Instead, the government has chosen to defy this guidance and move in the opposite direction.

Compulsory Substance Use Treatment is Ineffective and Dangerous

The evidence is clear and consistent:

• Compulsory treatment has no demonstrated long-term benefit.^[7]

• Relapse rates are extraordinarily high: one study reported 96.4% relapse within two months after mandated treatment.^[8]

• The risks of overdose^[9] and death are significantly elevated immediately after discharge from compulsory treatment.^[10]

• Involuntary settings sever trust, increase trauma, and escalate risk.^[11]

Leading human rights scholars have concluded that mass detention for “treatment” constitutes a grave violation of human rights and cannot be justified by claims of substance use disorder alone. As research and our own clinical experience demonstrate, people are most vulnerable to overdose after periods of forced abstinence. Coercion increases risk, it does not reduce it.

Ethical Obligations: We Cannot Provide Care Without Consent

The Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics^[12] requires nurses to:

• “respect the inherent dignity and autonomy of all people”;

• Provide care only with voluntary informed consent;

• Support capable people’s right to refuse treatment; and

• Uphold human rights as protected by the Canadian Charter.

The Canadian Medical Association Code of Ethics^[13] similarly requires physicians to respect autonomy, avoid harm, and maintain integrity even in the face of political pressure.

Forced treatment is incompatible with these standards. To participate in involuntary treatment for substance use disorders is to violate the core values of our professions, including non-maleficence (“do no harm”), respect for persons, and justice. No government can legislate away these obligations.

Moral Distress: Forcing Clinicians to Harm Patients Harms Us Too

Nurses and physicians across BC already experience extreme moral distress due to the ongoing crisis, chronic system failure, and the daily preventable deaths they witness. Involuntary treatment would force us to act against our ethical commitments, inflicting profound moral injury and exposing us to liability even with legislative shielding.

We cannot say we are on the right side of medical ethics when the government needs to amend a law just to shield us from lawsuits for our activities. Coercion of practitioners mirrors the coercion proposed for patients. Both are unacceptable.

Rooted in Moral Panic, Not Science

This legislation emerges from election-season moral panic rather than public health evidence. Research on moral panics shows predictable features: concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality, and volatility.^[14] The current framing of people who use drugs as “unable to make decisions” is not evidence-based - it is stigma that fuels criminalization and further harms.

Mis- and disinformation about safer supply, decriminalization, and voluntary treatment have circulated widely. But policy must be driven by evidence, not by fear, political pressure, or manufactured outrage.

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A Better Path Forward Exists

BC once led the world in harm reduction. We can do so again by:

• Investing in voluntary, evidence-based treatment;

• Expanding regulated alternatives (safer supply);

• Scaling housing-first and trauma-informed supports;

• Improving crisis care, primary care, and community outreach;

• Conducting a comprehensive review of the Mental Health Act, using a human rights lens

• Working alongside people who use drugs and their families to design care that meets their needs.

These are the solutions that save lives. Coercion does not.

Our Commitment and Our Call-to-Action

1. We refuse to participate in involuntary treatment for substance use disorders.

   This is consistent with our ethical codes, human rights obligations, and the best available evidence.

2. We call on the Premier to withdraw the proposed amendments to the Mental Health Act.

   The current Charter challenge must proceed without political interference.

3. We invite physicians, nurses, social workers, and allied care providers to sign on to this statement.

   Google Form Link Here

4. We urge public health institutions, civil society groups, and municipal leaders to join us.

   Silence from power holders, including the BCCDC, BCCSU, and Health Authority leadership, is no longer acceptable.

5. We commit to advocating for solutions that uphold dignity, autonomy, and life.

   People who use drugs deserve evidence-based care, not coercion. Health care providers deserve ethical working conditions, not moral injury. The public deserves policies rooted in human rights, not fear. Considerations of safety and security of the person should be weighted equally for both patients and healthcare workers in policy reforms.

This Moment Demands Courage

As health professionals, we choose the path of evidence, ethics, and humanity. We call on the government to do the same.

Sincerely,

The Harm Reduction Nurses Association

Doctors for Safer Drug Policy

[1] BC Government. (2025). Province taking action to strengthen involuntary care, better support for patients. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2025HLTH0055-001158

[2] Canadian Mental Health Association – BC Division. (2025). Critically important charter challenge on BC’s Mental Health Act underway today. https://bc.cmha.ca/news/charter-challenge-on-bcs-mental-health-act/

[3] BC Coroners Service. (2025). Statistical reports on deaths in British Columbia. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/death/coroners-service/statistical-reports

[4] BC Centre for Disease Control. (2025). Knowledge update: Brain injury following toxic drug events in British Columbia. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/death/coroners-service/statistical-reports

[5]Canadian Mental Health Association – BC Division. (2025). Critically important charter challenge on BC’s Mental Health Act underway today. https://bc.cmha.ca/news/charter-challenge-on-bcs-mental-health-act/

[6] British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. (2025). A human rights-based approach to the toxic drug crisis. https://bchumanrights.ca/resources/publications/publication/toxic-drug-crisis/

[7] Werb et al., (2015). The effectiveness of compulsory drug treatment: A systematic review. International Journal of Drug Policy, 28, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.12.005; Canadian Mental Health Association – BC Division. Involuntary care already exists in BC, but is it working? https://bc.cmha.ca/news/involuntary-care-in-bc/; Pilarinos et al., (2018). Secure care: more harm than good. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 15, E1219-20. https://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/41/E1219

[8] Nakhaee et al., (2024). The effectiveness of court-mandated compulsory treatment in promoting abstinence among people with substance use disorders in Iran. International Journal of Drug Policy, 124, 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104325

[9] Rafful et al., (2018). Increased non-fatal overdose risk associated with involuntary drug treatment in a longitudinal study with people who inject drugs. Addiction, 113(6), 1056-1063. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5938130/pdf/nihms934849.pdf

[10] Ledberg, A., & Reitan, T. (2022). Increased risk of death immediately after discharge from compulsory care for substance abuse. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 236, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109492; Borschmann et al., (2024). Rates and causes of death after release from incarceration among 1471526 people in eight high-income and middle-income countries: an individual participant data meta-analysis. The Lancet, 403(10438), 1779-1788. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00344-1

[11] Cha et al., (2021). The perspectives of people who use drugs regarding short term involuntary substance use care for severe substance use disorders. International Journal of Drug Policy, 97, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103208; O’Brien, D., & Hudson-Breen, R. (2023). “Grasping at straws”, experiences of Canadian parents using involuntary stabilization for a youth’s substance use. International Journal of Drug Policy, 117, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2023.104055; Health Justice. (2024). Regarding recent announcements on involuntary treatment in BC. https://www.healthjustice.ca/blog/involuntary-treatment-announcement; Health Justice. (2024). Fast facts on Mental Health Act and involuntary treatment. https://www.healthjustice.ca/fast-facts-mha#Involuntary-Treatment-Facts-2024

[12] Canadian Nurses Association. (2025). Code of Ethics for Nurses. https://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/nursing/regulated-nursing-in-canada/nursing-ethics/2025-coe

[13] Canadian Medical Association. (2018). CMA Code of Ethics and Professionalism. https://www.cma.ca/cma-code-ethics-and-professionalism

[14] Garland, D. (2008). On the concept of moral panic. Crime, Media, Culture, 4(1), 9-30. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/1741659007087270

Joint Statement - HRNA & DSDP

431KB ∙ PDF file

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But it’s not just optics—there is $497.1 million allocated to the VPD in the City’s 2026 proposed operating budget.

Meanwhile, the VPD is projected to overspend its 2025 budget by $17 million. In 2024, the VPD overspent by at least $6.5 million. The VPD’s purported rationale for overspending in the last two years has focused on increases in overtime pay, particularly from policing protests and forcibly displacing people living outside.

With Vancouver hosting FIFA World Cup games during the upcoming municipal election year, we can expect that the VPD will put together new public relations strategies to rationalize their overspending.

This spending does not account for the other forms of law enforcement the city pays for, such as bylaw officers, park rangers, transit police (via Translink contributions), nor the city staff that conduct street sweeps.

While a municipal police board should—in theory—be an added layer of community oversight, Vancouver’s police board seems to have devolved into a mechanism for increasing police power and budgets.

In February 2024, one police board member quit, pointing to Lowe’s apparent conflicts of interest. Both of Lowe’s employment roles during her board tenure have been directing organizations (Sun Yat-Sen Gardens; H.R. MacMillan Space Centre) that rely on city funding, making it less likely she would oppose Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s direction.

Vancouver’s former mayor, Kennedy Stewart, relinquished his spokesperson duties on the police board in 2021, citing what he called “indefensible” inaction on systemic racism within the city’s police force.

In 2020, the city voted to essentially freeze the police budget for one year rather than increase it—at the height of COVID-19 pandemic austerity and a coordinated defund the police social movement—but the decision was overturned at the provincial-level by the director of police services (and former police officer) Wayne Rideout.

In BC, municipalities are ultimately under the control of the provincial government, who can override city-level decisions.

Under Premier David Eby, the BC NDP make up one of the most pro-police provincial governments in recent history—not only has the province poured money into policing, it has also empowered police with new legal tools, including expanded criteria for apprehending people under the Mental Health Act, new civil forfeiture abilities, and discretion to decide personal drug possession quantities without using a scale or other measuring tool.

The VPD budget continues to dominate the municipal spending priorities, even as other existing (and potential) city-funded services that provide community safety and inclusion are being defunded under Ken Sim’s proposed property tax freeze.

“This means a tax freeze for the richest property owners off the backs of the poor,” says P.O.W.E.R. member-researcher Dave Hamm.

In the broad categories released by the city to date, the city’s proposed 2026 budget includes: a 12 per cent spending cut to arts and culture; a 13 per cent decrease in the city’s real estate and facilities management spending; and a 14 per cent decrease in urban planning and sustainability.

Reporting by National Observer indicates the city is planning to completely defund and dismantle its climate and sustainability department. P.O.W.E.R. has previously brought attention to how the DTES faces the brunt of climate change impacts within the city.

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Grants for social programming are set to be frozen, while the underfunded Vancouver Public Libraries system will receive an increase of $2.1 million total. This year, the city also began contracting out the provision of extreme weather response sites to Homeless Services BC—shifting the city’s weather response from the public domain to a private nonprofit without the same funding options.

“Funding for FIFA, nothing for the people,” adds Delilah Gregg, a P.O.W.E.R. member-researcher and board member of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society.

Reporting in the Vancouver Sun shows that projected public spending for hosting the FIFA World Cup has risen to as high as $624 million, with approximately $276 million coming from the municipal budget.

The VPD recently reported to city council that they will bring Royal Mounted Canadian Police officers from Saskatchewan to the city to increase policing during the international soccer tournament.

Continued decimation of community safety infrastructure

Between provincial austerity and city police spending, programming for community safety and inclusion continues to be impacted, leaving communities at risk of violence, public health harm and desperation.

“As the police budget increases to almost $500 million, we lose access to everything that is keeping us safe,” says Michelle Durham, a P.OW.E.R. member-researcher. “We are seeing funding cuts to essential services for women and gender diverse people, such as WISH, PACE Society, Sister Square, housing, and harm reduction services.”

Rather than ensure that there are services and spaces for the public to seek respite, access cultural support, receive care, food security, build community and/or have basic needs met, the proposed budget looks to actively decrease community programming with a funding freeze in the face of inflation, while increasing the presence of policing.

Samona Marsh, a board member of Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War and a P.O.W.E.R. member-researcher warns that, “As harm reduction supports are decreasing, such as access to rigs, straight pipes, and bubble pipes. In the past, when we have seen cuts to harm reduction services we see an increase in HIV and Hep C.”

And while funding for harm reduction equipment is provincial, an increase in access points could be funded through the city, particularly during the ongoing toxic drug crisis.

“What costs more, harm reduction supplies or HIV and HEP C medication?” asks Marsh.

Research shows that policing not only has a neutral impact on the toxic drug crisis—but produces negative effects. Police presence can deter safer consumption practices, interfere with overdose response, and police seizures of the unregulated drug supply systemically creates changes in the supply that increases risk of overdose.

Hindsight on the 2022 cop council election

In 2022, Sim and his campaign manager Kareem Allam (now running for mayor in 2026) courted an endorsement from the Vancouver Police Union.

The VPU did endorse Sim and Allam’s ABC party–the first political endorsement in the association’s history. ABC then ran on a catchy and dangerous campaign lie to expand involuntary treatment teams through the hiring of 100 police and 100 nurses (Predictably, the city did contribute to hiring 100 police officers, but fewer than 10 nurses in 2023).

Since the election, in-depth reporting by Lisa Steacy and Andrew Reichel for CTV News has shown that despite the VPD’s public focus on stranger assaults during the 2022 election campaign, these types of attacks were already on a major downward trend.

In an internal email, VPD Sgt. Steve Addison wrote to Deputy Chief Howard Chow about a social media thread he composed about two incidents of violence, “If you want it, we can help post it to your account. Good talking points, if nothing else,” in an apparent example of public perception weighing more than the impacts of the violence that hundreds of millions in police funding did nothing to stop.

On Nov. 5, VPD Chief Steve Rai told city council that although violent crime was decreasing, the public’s perception of safety has not increased. Rai interpreted this as a call for more police on the streets. The city’s consultation on the 2026 budget indicates that residents of Vancouver ranked stopping or lowering the police budget as their number one choice for reduction in services, while businesses ranked it third.

Background

Vancouver mayor can’t answer how $5M for ‘Task Force Barrage’ was approved

‘Fear and anxiety’: What our police FOI requests uncovered about Vancouver’s stranger assault scare

Chinatown divided over Ken Sim’s election as mayor

Nowhere to seek safety as gender-based violence worsens under drug supply & displacement crises

B.C. can’t police its way out of a housing crisis

Police across Canada are hiring a tech company to justify bigger budgets and belittle social services

Vancouver Police Union breaks with tradition and endorses ABC Vancouver for municipal election

A condensed history of Canada’s colonial cops

Dispatch #7 Themes

1. DTES overdoses increase after neighbourhood police raids
   On Sept. 25, the Vancouver Police Department conducted a number of raids at low-income single room occupancy (“SRO”) hotels in the downtown eastside, which reportedly took six weeks of preparation.

   When VPD conducted these raids and disrupted the unregulated drug supply, the public health system did not initiate urgent access to alternatives for people who rely on the supply that was taken—indeed, the province has never done this—despite the fact that British Columbia is in the ninth year of a formal public health emergency due to the toxic drug supply.
   
   Vancouver Coastal Health did release toxic drug alerts on Sept. 26, Oct. 17, Oct. 22, and October 31 to notify us about increased overdoses. On Oct. 22, two P.O.W.E.R. members on shift helped respond to at least four overdoses on Hastings St. during the two-hour drop-in period.
   
   The VPD not only took credit for this supply-side disruption, but—as shown in the image below—seemed to try to inflate the size of these seizures by calculating the combined value as if the supply had been divided up into 1/10 gram increments, and then sold for more than the street value. (While we’re counting: they also combined fake and real guns into one category.)

   

   In the the Vancouver Sun, reporter Sarah Grochowski uncritically repeated this cost analysis, and employed further exaggerated language by labelling the entire seizure as ‘toxic drugs.’

2. Park rangers escalate cycle of displacement at Oppenheimer Park
   Park rangers continue to escalate against people sleeping in Oppenheimer Park. In the past two weeks, multiple Oppenheimer residents have reported seizures of belongings by Park Rangers to P.O.W.E.R., along with instructions to reduce personal property to fewer than the ‘one bin’ previously permitted, as well as receiving threats of impoundment fines.

Newsletter highlights

In October, P.O.W.E.R. brought attention to the destruction of people’s residences in the Moccasin Flats encampment in Prince George.

P.O.W.E.R. in the news

• The Tyee: The Supreme Court of Canada wants you to call 911 if someone is overdosing

• CBC News: ‘Historical change’: Vancouver police to create new policing district in DTES

Community activity

While a coalition of nonprofit landlords, including the CEOs of Pacifica Housing and PHS, campaign against tenancy rights by removing so-called ‘supportive housing’ from the Residential Tenancy Act completely—members of P.O.W.E.R. have conducted outreach to hear community concerns, and provided rights-based education to tenants.

P.O.W.E.R. joined 10 other housing justice groups to demand a halt to the stripping of RTA rights from tenants in supportive housing: read the full statement here

This nonprofit landlord campaign follows two substantial 2024 carve outs of RTA rights from supportive housing after the province won a legal case against a tenant who was excluded from the RTA—the win came with a disclaimer from the court that the province must clarify tenancy rights within supportive housing units. BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon then signed a ministerial order legalizing guest bans and unsolicited landlord entry (in the name of ‘wellness checks’) in supportive housing buildings; an order which remains relatively untested in tenancy-landlord disputes or in the courts.

Some relevant analysis on ‘supportive housing’ in Vancouver:

• CLAS: BC Proposal to Strip Tenant Rights in Supportive Housing is a Betrayal to Renters

• Harm Reduction Journal: Increases in housing rules and surveillance during COVID-19: impacts on overdose and overdose response in Vancouver

• Our Homes Can’t Wait: “It’s Like Jail” Housing, Homelessness and Carcerality in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

• University of Victoria: The language of neglect: A critical discourse analysis of single room occupancy housing inspection reports

• International Journal of Drug Policy: A qualitative study of the socio-legal contexts of residential evictions in the Downtown Eastside

P.O.W.E.R. also facilitated three peer-to-peer sharing circles for those impacted by police violence during September and October. All three of these groups were at full capacity.

In early November, three P.O.W.E.R. members participated in a community event in Cowichan to discuss resisting police power and displacement. Our friends at North Cowichan Copwatch are highlighting increased forms of displacement and the dehumanization of unhoused people in the region.

The city of Prince George has posted notices on the fences erected around Moccasin Flats stating they will clear the encampment today at 9:00am.

Between eight and 10 people are actively living there, according to community outreach workers. The population of Moccasin Flats has fluctuated since it was established in 2021.

The city’s plan to forcibly displace people to nowhere is part of a trend in regions across British Columbia, including in Kelowna, Vancouver, Maple Ridge and Surrey, to dismantle tent cities and displace the people who live there through coercion and force.

“They’re criminalizing homelessness,” says Moccasin Flats resident Johnny MacBurnie.

Canada’s federal housing advocate and BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner are among those calling for an end to the violence of displacing people living outdoors across BC. Research conducted in Vancouver and across the US has shown that forced displacement and increased chances of overdose are connected, as is displacement with a number of other public health harms.

A 2022 report conducted by the BC Assembly of First Nations in Prince George showed many public health issues can be driven by displacement and seizures of belongings by bylaw officers in the city, including the impacts of the toxic drug crisis. The confiscation of what few belongings people had also led to injuries from the cold, such as frostbite, and forced people into “survival mode” to keep warm.

The Moccasin Flats encampment has been the focus of a number of legal battles won by the residents. But in August, the BC Supreme Court handed down an injunction that permits the city to displace the remaining people residing there.

In 2021, the city breached the legal order protecting Moccasin Flats as they dismantled much of the encampment without meeting conditions to provide adequate shelter for the people living there before taking such action. The legal order is seen as an important human rights precedent toward the decriminalization of people living outdoors during the daytime in BC.

In March 2022, Prince George issued an apology for its breach and “causing harm to vulnerable citizens.”

MacBurnie and some other residents feel the recent ruling goes in the opposite direction and criminalizes homelessness.

BC Supreme Court Justice Elwood found that although there was still a shortage of adequate housing compared to the total residents in Moccasin Flats, he deemed the city’s longer term plan to be “realistic.” Prince George called the ruling a success in a press release soon after.

Prince George had also sought a formal declaration that the Third Avenue site be considered “accessible” shelter. Justice Elwood rejected this, stating that it could risk defining people who decline to stay there for any reason as no longer homeless under the law.

Not mentioned in Justice Elwood’s ruling is that Third Avenue is “transitional.” Residents are not covered by the tenancy rights embedded in BC’s Residential Tenancy Act in transitional units—this means people can (and are) evicted without notice.

Many current and former encampment residents have cycled through BC’s fractured supportive housing system, sometimes traumatically losing access to their community through an arbitrary process decided by a nonprofit landlord.

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“We were displaced because we had a place to go. Now we’re going to be homeless:” Former resident of Moccasin Flats

Residents of Moccasin Flats are concerned about disruptions to community care. As one former, longtime resident shares, “The camp has served 24/7 as a hospital, a hotel, and a drop-in site.”

This is particularly important during a toxic drug crisis, where using in public can be a survival strategy, and where the province has failed to follow its own ministerial order to establish overdose prevention sites wherever needed. Displacement often leads people into isolation.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” says one current Moccasin Flats resident. “If the public don’t want us in their communities...they tear down ours, forcing us into theirs?”

Community care in encampments is not exceptional to Moccasin Flats. Last year, for example, Vancouver park rangers and police officers confiscated a tent that was used as an overdose prevention site from CRAB park residents. The BC Civil Liberties Association is currently suing Vancouver for its criminalization of daytime sheltering.

Some Moccasin Flats residents highlight that the encampment provides the opportunity to work together to regulate who is allowed to come and go, which can offer a sense of safety that does not exist when living outdoors alone.

Politicians and business owners rally to scapegoat most marginalized

While the city works to clear out the Moccasin Flats encampment, business owners and politicians are rallying to increase control and criminalization of people living outdoors, including through forced treatment and expanding the number, hours and scope of bylaw officers.

Hundreds of people attended a “Safe Streets Rally” at the CN Centre earlier this month, where attendees and speakers reportedly cheered on the possibility of a local state of emergency.

Eoin Foley, owner of Nancy O’s and Betulla Burning, has advocated for a state of emergency because—in his own words—it “can give a few extra powers, like implementing a curfew…so anybody’s that’s skulking around, that’s up to no good can be detained for the evening and without having to actually commit a crime[sic].” A municipality can call for a temporary state of emergency for up to 14 days, and extensions rely on the support of the provincial government. (They are more typically called for natural disaster management.)

Criminalization of public space

The latest estimates indicate that the number of people living without housing in Prince George has increased since the original Moccasin Flats case. And from 2019 to 2023, the number of people dying without shelter in the Northern Health authority region per year increased from nine to 46, according to BC’s Coroners Service.

People living outdoors are facing the most acute and frequent aspects of community safety issues in Prince George. Displacement and expanded criminalization are effective interventions when the goal is to forcefully push people living outside into isolation, and into survival mode or death.

Each and every resource Prince George spends on policing and criminalizing people living outside could otherwise be spent on inclusion and care – culturally relevant and peer-to-peer supports, appropriate and dignified housing, nutrition and health – to be a city where “public safety” includes safety for members of the public without shelter.

“Nutshell,” a poem by Johnny MacBurnie:

Millions have died
the whole world was locked down
rivers ate highways and cities and towns — not to mention the fires
whole towns have burned down tornadoes touched down
and ate town after town
fent is still killing
they’re dead on the ground
and covid took millions
no end to be found

Residentials were grave yards
the nightmares they found
thousands of children
found dead in the ground
now people are still
being told to calm down
while bodies and bodies and bodies
are found

Dispatch #6 Themes

1. Violent arrests
   In July alone, P.O.W.E.R. received four separate reports from people who experienced violent arrests by Vancouver Police Department officers. P.O.W.E.R. is still seeking information from witnesses for three (click for requests: arrest 1, arrest 2 and arrest 3).
   

2. Law enforcement militarization and aggression
   Over the past two months, notable militarization and aggression from law enforcement officers has presented itself in three major ways. The first has been through the presence of VPD officers in green uniform in the Downtown Eastside. This has been a signifier that officers are part of the VPD’s “Emergency Response Team.” It is unclear why they have had increased presence in the Downtown Eastside.

   
   

   There also has been a number of officers with large and visible firearms.

   

   Lastly, residents who are enduring forced displacement by park rangers have noted experiences of aggression from some rangers, including an inability to ask for ways to retrieve their personal belongings after they are confiscated.

P.O.W.E.R. in the news

• Vancouver Sun: Swept aside: Vancouver ‘street sweeps’ linked to greater risk of overdose, violence

• CBC: International Overdose Awareness Day commemorated in B.C.

• The Tyee: A Day to Mark Thousands Lost to Unregulated Toxic Drugs

• The Mainlander: Housing sat empty as people were “displaced to nowhere” during Hastings decampment

• The Tyee: VPD Officers Weren’t Fully Prepared for Drug Decriminalization

• The Peak: Vancouver Police’s Task Force Barrage draws controversy from the community

Community activity

This summer, P.O.W.E.R., alongside members of Devils Club Street Medics, Weaving our Worlds, and Dogwood BC has run “hydration stations” on cheque days. Many Downtown Eastside residents must line up outside for hours at their respective welfare offices, even if there is a heat wave (or heat dome), without access to water, seating or shade. People still have no autonomy to change their income assistance date.

During our August hydration station, P.O.W.E.R. members packed and distributed cooling kits, with guidance from the Devil’s Club Street Medics’ free instructional heat response zine.

Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War (CPDDW), P.O.W.E.R. and CSSDP Vancouver, with support of many people in the harm reduction community, coordinated overdose response trainings at several Vancouver skytrain stations on Aug. 29th. More than 250 naloxone kits were distributed, and hundreds of people attended training demonstrations in a three-hour window. Get naloxone trained, save a life!

P.O.W.E.R.’s monthly ‘Bad Cops’ lists are now available for download: click here to access.

P.O.W.E.R. facilitated three ‘support circles’ in July and August by and for people who have had negative experiences with law enforcement.

P.O.W.E.R. was part of an anti-carceral float at this year’s Vancouver Dyke March. P.O.W.E.R. raises our hands to VDM’s commitment to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and we love them for discouraging police presence at events to better include criminalized communities.

P.O.W.E.R. members contributed to this years’ International Overdose Awareness Day events at Oppenheimer Park. We grieve thousands.

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P.O.W.E.R hosted an online forum with our friends at Stop the Stack, which covered a brief history of the group, charge stacking, and a cross-movement discussion on solidarity fundraising. To support, follow Stop the Stack YYC on instagram for updates and redistro your funds to the ongoing 250K Relief Fund.

New research feat. P.O.W.E.R. members

Royal Society for Public Health: "Street sweeps:" The municipal government-enforced confiscation of personal belongings among unstably housed people who use drugs in Vancouver
Click here for an infographic of the results.

BC Studies: Colonial Power, Displacement, and Drug War Propaganda: Politics of British Columbia’s 2023 Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act

An undercurrent of anti-Indian sentiment has taken root since Canada set out to significantly increase immigration to ease a tight labour market after the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. By last year, Canada had surpassed its target, with people of Indian origin making up nearly 30 per cent of new permanent residents, the largest share.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric online is potent and further exacerbates negative perceptions of Indians. Real-world implications are playing out, with the rhetoric influencing discourse and shaping public policy in counterproductive ways.

This is not the first time in Canadian history that governments have scapegoated immigrants for systemic problems they failed to address. But immigrants are not to blame for the housing shortage or our strained public services.

The federal government and provinces should be addressing the country’s longstanding problems rather than legitimizing misleading narratives and basing policy choices on them.

Canadians’ newfound aversion to immigration

Public support for immigration is in sharp decline despite Canada’s reputation as one of the most immigrant-friendly nations in the world. Canadians are now evenly split on whether the country is accepting too many immigrants, a 2023 Environics survey revealed.

With this shift has come an alarming rise in hostility toward South Asians, evident from a surge in targeted hate crimes. Between 2019 and 2022, hate crimes against South Asians increased by 143 per cent and a quarter of South Asian-Canadians reported experiencing discrimination or harassment in 2022 alone, according to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

Anti-Indian racism online

Few platforms properly regulate hate speech, but TikTok and Instagram have played a key role in spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric.

For example, the popular Toronto Instagram account 6ixbuzz has been criticized for posting content to deliberately stir racist commentary against marginalized groups. The account also uses the city of Brampton, Ont., to dog-whistle xenophobic reactions and racist stereotypes about Sikh Punjabis, Indian international students, and the broader South Asian community.

It’s all too common to see clips of people with brown skin – assumed to be from India – flooded with racist comments. And on travel accounts, the reverse happens, too: videos of people visiting India often attract derogatory remarks about Brampton, filled with tired stereotypes about Indians and fears of what Canada’s future might look like.

In one particularly egregious instance, TikTok commenters mocked the suicide of a former Niagara College student, Charandeep Singh, celebrating his death and calling for more Indians to follow suit.

Such online comments are seemingly from a vocal minority, but they foster an environment of hostility and exclusion.

For instance, recent allegations of public defecation by Indian immigrants in the Ontario town of Wasaga Beach were spread by a TikTok user despite lacking any evidence. They quickly gained traction, further fueling racist sentiments against Indian immigrants with the circulation of a fake sign depicting a Sikh man defecating on the beach.

The misinformation prompted calls for government intervention. Yet, rather than dispelling the baseless rumours, Premier Doug Ford gave the town $1 million to build washrooms and hire more staff. In legitimizing the misinformation, a provincial government allowed racist narratives online to shape public policy and discourse.

Canada’s history of anti-South Asian racism

Many Indian-Canadians have never forgotten the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, when hundreds of Sikh migrants were denied entry to Canada when they arrived by ship from Hong Kong. They were turned away because of a newly drafted regulation that targeted migration from South Asia.

In 1907, riots against Japanese, Chinese, and Indian workers in Bellingham, Wash., spilled into Canada, exacerbating anti-Asian sentiment in the West. Motivated by the poor state of the labour market and xenophobia, protesters flooded Vancouver streets, calling for a “White Canada” and attacking members of the targeted groups.

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Today, Indian immigrants are once again being framed as the cause of Canada’s problems, from economic strain to social unrest. Amid one of the worst housing crises since the 1980s, an increase in poverty and food insecurity and an overburdened health-care system, Indian immigrants are increasingly scapegoated by the public and governments.

Instead of addressing these systemic issues and providing new infrastructure, the federal government has capped the number of permits for international students and is looking to reduce the growth in permanent residents.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that “Canada remains a place that is positive in its support for immigration, but also responsible in the way we integrate and make sure there’s pathways to success for everyone who comes to Canada.”

And what’s the rationale for limiting international students? The misleading narrative that recent immigrants and international students put pressure on housing, health care and other services and that the move will alleviate that pressure.

A lack of affordable housing stems from an aging population of baby boomers who prefer to age in their homes and the longstanding complicity of all levels of government in facilitating the shortage of affordable housing by stifling the construction of homes.

Furthermore, the role of private colleges in this crisis cannot be ignored. The CBC’s Fifth Estate found that college recruiters stationed in India lure students and their families with the promise of better job prospects and an easy pathway to permanent residency.

For-profit colleges across Canada have preyed upon and capitalized on the dreams of international students, treating students as numbers and enrolling as many as possible without concern for the quality of education or support needed to succeed.

The federal government’s failure to co-ordinate with provincial governments and adequately regulate these colleges has left many students – especially those from India – in precarious situations. Many live in overcrowded housing and work multiple low-wage jobs all the while contending with anti-brown racism.

The path forward

Current and future governments need to do a few things. Canada needs to reaffirm its commitment to being a welcoming nation for all. Politicians must address the rise in anti-Indian hate and South Asian-Canadian politicians need to tackle this hate within their communities.

A tangible plan is needed to build affordable and sustainable infrastructure to accommodate those living in precarious situations. Private colleges must be regulated to protect international students from further exploitation.

With Indian immigrants and international students being the focal point for societal frustrations, Canada must shift away from its limited and profit-driven view of immigrants and implement policies that ensure immigrants are treated with dignity and respect.

To ensure that their futures are shaped by genuine opportunities and not empty promises, the welfare of marginalized communities must be prioritized. It’s high time Canada turns the page on scapegoating.

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BACKGROUND

• Briarpatch: Going to the root: harm reduction to combat racism and imperialism

• PressProgress: International Students Are Dying From Overdoses at an Alarming Rate. But BC Isn’t Tracking the Problem.

• BC Human Rights Commission: Racial disparities in British Columbia police statistics: A preliminary examination of a complex issue

• Zine: Symbols are beautiful—not exoneration for injustice

• International Journal of Drug Policy: “They talk about it like it's an overdose crisis when in fact it's basically genocide”
  
  

A legal challenge to the federal government’s decision to amend British Columbia’s decriminalization framework – at the province’s request – to exclude essentially all outdoor space will be heard next week.

Dubbed ‘recriminalization,’ this major change to BC’s decriminalization framework has been in place since May 2024. Recriminalization made nearly all personal drug possession illegal – aside from when someone is inside a private residence, shelter, designated health clinic, overdose prevention or drug checking site, and also carrying a cumulative total of 2.5 or grams or less of certain drugs.

The judicial review filed by 13 drug user rights groups will be open to the public at Pacific Centre (701 Georgia St W, room #801) in Vancouver from 21 July until 23 July, starting at 9:30am each day.

While recriminalization is a step backward, P.O.W.E.R. notes that BC’s decriminalization framework was never adequate enough to remove law enforcement from drug users’ lives in the first place. The framework always decriminalized an ineffective possession amount in order to please police representatives.

Recriminalization is part of a shifting public policy maze that has hardly been communicated to people at highest risk of dying and other wide-ranging harm from the unpredictable, criminalized drug supply. P.O.W.E.R.’s own emerging data indicates the decriminalization framework is poorly understood by the general public.

Bill 34 is dead

In December 2024, the BC NDP repealed their similarly draconian and cruel Restricting public consumption of illegal substances act (Bill 34) after it seemed certain the Act would be struck down by a Charter challenge from the Harm Reduction Nurses Association.

Bill 34 was fundamentally police power legislation that would have allowed police officers to arrest, fine and displace people they suspect of recent or active drug use in public spaces despite an ongoing public health emergency.

Recriminalization: A “backdoor policy”

Rather than let up, the BC NDP have seemingly circumvented the Bill 34 challenge by using this recriminalization amendment.

Darren Graham, a member-researcher of P.O.W.E.R., calls this a “backdoor policy,” that made it so BC’s narrow decriminalization framework only applied to a few designated indoor spaces.

In short, recriminalization is a way to side-step democratic norms to increase police power and further criminalize public drug use during dual housing and toxic drug crises that continues to grip much of BC.

Dave Hamm, a member-researcher with P.O.W.E.R. and board member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, points out that while harm reduction services, including supervised use sites are being defunded, carceral responses are increasing in every domain of life – from housing to significant expansions to expanded forms of involuntary treatment.

Delilah Gregg, a member-researcher with P.O.W.E.R. and board member of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society asks, “So, what even happened to truth and reconciliation?”

Existing forms of involuntary treatment in BC re-produce inequities and harm against First Nations, Black and other racialized and Indigenous Peoples in BC. P.O.W.E.R. argues these expansions to carceral-healthcare forced apprehensions, detentions and ‘treatments’ likely contravene calls in the Truth and Reconciliation’s final report, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the province of BC has ratified.

Gregg says the combination of rolling back life-saving services, while increasing forced displacement and detention is “gentrification and genocide all rolled into one.”

BACKGROUND

• Impact Abbotsford: Coalition of organizations representing people who use drugs ask court to set aside recriminalization decision

• International Journal of Drug Policy: Criminalizing public space through a decriminalization framework: The paradox of British Columbia, Canada

• Drug Data Decoded: BC NDP are weaponizing drug law to cover their healthcare and housing failures: Nurses & healthcare staff

• Canadian Journal of Public Health: Decriminalization undone: Assessing the amendment to British Columbia’s decriminalization framework

• CBC News: Drug user groups ask court to quash B.C. drug 'recriminalization'

• BC Civil Liberties Association: From Decriminalization to Recriminalization in BC Drug Policy

• Journal of the American Medical Association: Population-Level Health Effects of Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Homelessness Who Inject Drugs

• BC Studies: Colonial Power, Displacement, and Drug War Propaganda: Politics of British Columbia’s 2023 Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act

Dispatch #5 Themes

1. Aggressive policing, street sweeps & displacement
   Multiple police officers have been witnessed acting aggressively during the city of Vancouver’s ‘roving’ street sweeps. One officer was reportedly overheard speaking to a city worker near Dunlevy and Hastings, expressing it was ‘time to lay the hammer down’ on outdoor residents. In June, some P.O.W.E.R. members witnessed park rangers seeming to threaten increased restrictions on people sheltering overnight in parks.

2. Surveillance
   The Vancouver Police Department have installed two sets of permanent cameras in the downtown eastside – one set at Main St. and Hastings St., and another at Carrall St. and Hastings. The VPD have also been deploying their mobile closed circuit TV cameras in different areas of the neighbourhood.

   

Newsletter highlights

Melody Wise and Jenn McDermid brought attention and analysis to Atira’s decision to sue two of their tenants for the Winters Hotel fire — three years after the fire occurred.

P.O.W.E.R. released a video of Jeremy Omand, the Gastown Residents Association Vice-President, physically bringing a person to the ground in an act described as ‘vigilantism.’ Omand is on the board of the new Gastown community policing centre that is set to open in the Woodward’s building.

P.O.W.E.R. in the news

• CBC: Community groups say VPD officers are loitering outside supervised drug consumption sites

• The Tyee: Critics Want Less Police Presence Near Harm Reduction Sites

• The Peak: Police presence outside Downtown Eastside harm reduction sites sparks concerns

• The Mainlander: Nowhere to seek safety as gender-based violence worsens under drug supply & displacement crises

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Community Activity

P.O.W.E.R. ran ‘hydration tables’ at the Downtown Eastside income assistance offices during June cheque day. The neighbourhood continues to face extreme heat and shade inequality. (Check out the Devils Club Street Medics’ printable heat response resource here).

P.O.W.E.R is working alongside Stop the Stack on the 250k Relief Fund Campaign in support of activists Taylor McNallie and Adora Nwofor, who have been targets of racist charge stacking, a tactic employed by the Calgary Police Service. You can donate directly to the campaign here, and there is a public call out for allied groups to host fundraisers to support the Relief Fund. (Follow Stop the Stack YYC on their socials for updates.)

In late May, with generous support from a number of community members, P.O.W.E.R. co-facilitated a femme and sex worker-oriented distribution of clothing and hygiene products in the downtown eastside.

New research feat. P.O.W.E.R. members

Harm Reduction Journal: “The people who depended on us became expendable”: Experiences of frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Drug Science, Law and Policy: Probing trends of opioid seizures under a nascent “decriminalization” framework in Vancouver, Canada

In a video submitted to P.O.W.E.R., Jeremy Omand can be seen grabbing a person by their chest before forcing them down to the ground inside the atrium of the Woodward’s building in Vancouver.

The person recording the event told P.O.W.E.R. they were then shoved “forcefully” by Omand, causing them to fall to the ground and lose grip on their phone.

In a statement to P.O.W.E.R., Omand confirmed that he is the person in the video, and rationalized his actions. He refers to the person he pulled down as a “thief.” Omand is the vice-president of the Gastown Residents Association, as recently as January 2025, according to his newsletter.

(The full video can be viewed here.)

The 2023 video was provided to P.O.W.E.R. by the concerned resident who captured it. The resident described Omand’s actions as “vigilantism.”

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“This is the one time I caught it, but I don’t want to imagine what he has done since,” says the resident, who P.O.W.E.R. is keeping anonymous for considerations of backlash.

Omand says he is on the advisory committee for the forthcoming Gastown community policing centre. P.O.W.E.R. reached out to the City of Vancouver for comment, but the City did not respond by deadline.

In his response to P.O.W.E.R., Omand stated, “I stepped in to assist the security guard, I brought the man to the ground as gently as I could…and in a calm and controlled manner; I did not throw any strikes, he was held there for about 1 second.”

Omand expresses that his “heart breaks” for people experiencing “homelessness, drug addiction and mental health challenges in our community,” including a member of his family.

He adds, “we also have a responsibility to uphold the rule of law.”

Omand reports that after police reviewed the footage, the officers told him the force he used was “reasonable,” as he “was assisting security who had legal authority to detain the suspect.” (P.O.W.E.R. inquired with Omand if there was record of this or a secondary witness, but did not hear back prior to the publication.)

The resident who recorded the video affirmed that Vancouver Police officers did arrive on scene after being called by security. They say that after giving their contact information to the officers, they did not receive any follow-up communication.

Previous freedom of information documents show the Gastown Residents Association lobbying then-ABC party park board commissioners and city councillors to clear the CRAB Park encampment in 2024.

One day prior to the 2025 Vancouver byelection, the Gastown Residents Association hosted an event featuring city councillors Peter Meiszner and Brian Montague–who is also a former Vancouver Police spokesperson–as the councillors campaigned “on behalf of their ABC candidates,” according to the association’s April newsletter.

Omand is currently listed as a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty Van on their website.

On April 11, 2022 a fire broke out at the Winters Hotel. The building was managed by Atira, a Vancouver-based housing organization. The fire tragically claimed the lives of two people who lived there, Mary Ann Garlow and Dennis Guay. Another 144 residents from the Winters Hotel and neighbouring buildings were displaced.

Now, three years later, Atira is suing two of the residents contending they should take some blame for the tragic fire.

Multiple facts about the preventable nature of the fire have come to light through media and a coroner’s inquest. These reports have highlighted Atira’s negligence in upholding building safety, and raised critical concerns about the oversight and accountability mechanisms in place to protect residents in similar housing environments.

The Winters Hotel had experienced a previous fire three days before the fatal event, on April 8, 2022.

After this earlier fire, Vancouver Fire Rescue Services issued a notice of violation, which placed the building under a fire watch. The violation notice ordered immediate servicing of the sprinkler and fire alarm systems. By the time of the later fire, these safety systems were not yet restored.

On April 11, 2022, the sprinkler system failed to activate, and the fire alarms did not sound, leaving residents without any formal warning of the developing hazard. Fire extinguishers used during the April 8 fire were not replaced or refilled, rendering them ineffective during the second blaze.

Without functional firefighting equipment, residents and staff attempted to combat the fire with improvised means including buckets of water. In the aftermath of the fire, many displaced residents were relocated to buildings that were found to be similarly inadequate in terms of fire safety protocols. Vancouver Fire Rescue Services confirmed that Atira had failed to maintain fire alarms at four other buildings, and had neglected to properly maintain fire extinguishers at two of these buildings in the months following the Winters Hotel tragedy.

In 2023, residents of the Winters Hotel initiated a class action lawsuit against Atira, the City of Vancouver, and Winters Residence Ltd. (the private landowner), alleging gross negligence in the oversight of building safety and in the protection of residents living in the single room occupancy (SRO) building.

One week before the third anniversary of the fire, Atira filed lawsuits at the BC Supreme Court seeking to redirect liability to two former residents, contending that they bear partial or full responsibility for the fire.

Housing governance within Vancouver

In Vancouver, a small number of organizations receive the majority of provincial funding to build or manage housing geared towards lower-income communities (i.e., supportive housing, transitional housing), including privately owned SROs like the Winters Hotel. While funding varies, in 2022, the year of the fire, Atira received $74.1 million from BC Housing, roughly $35 million more than the next highest, similar housing operator.

This funding came as residents and frontline workers had been raising alarms about the state of Atira managed buildings for years.

Non-profit managed buildings, including those operated by Atira, have been repeatedly characterized as having heightened surveillance, limited tenancy rights, and unsafe infrastructure. Residents in these buildings contend with broken elevators, rampant pest problems, mold, severe restrictions, and unsanitary conditions, while housing executives take-home six figure salaries.

In 2022, the CRA reported that Janice Abott, Atira’s CEO, earned between $250k-300k. These tensions came under heightened scrutiny in 2023, when a forensic audit by Ernst & Young revealed serious governance failures at BC Housing, including an alleged conflict of interest between its then-CEO Shayne Ramsay and Abbott, who were married.

Atira has competing interests within its own organizational structure, which includes both non-profit and for-profit subsidiaries. In total, the organization is split into three: Atira Women’s Resource Society, Atira Property Management, and Atira Development Society. All three organizations are part of the claim blaming two Winter’s Hotel residents for causing the fire.

In the case of the Winters Hotel, Atira Women’s Resource Society received funding from BC Housing to manage the SRO as supportive housing, with Atira Property Management Inc. operating the property. Given the conflicting nature of the non-profit and for-profit arms, divergent priorities may have compromised Atira’s ability to ensure both the structural safety of the building and overall well-being of residents and frontline workers. These tensions are emblematic of some of the systemic issues inherent within non-profit managed buildings more broadly whereby accountability has historically been given to funders or the “bottom line” over residents.

As the housing crisis worsens, non-profits and SRO operators like Atira take on the role of housing provider, allowing governments to sidestep their responsibility in ensuring people’s basic needs are met. In doing so, governments hand over significant control to these organizations, who are able to dictate the terms of residents’ tenancy with little oversight or tenant protections, often allowing these buildings to fall into disrepair. In some instances, residents choose to sleep in shelters or outdoors because of the deplorable state of these buildings. There has been ample reporting on the state of non-profit managed buildings across the city.

Atira’s approach is an example of how this type of organizational structure contributes to the neglect of buildings, including the conditions that led to the Winters Hotel fire. Atira, like many other housing providers that manage supportive, transitional and SRO buildings, did little to maintain a safe home for residents. Instead, they cut corners, provided bare-minimum repairs, underpaid their frontline workers and left them with few supports, and knowingly failed to comply with fire safety standards, all the while publicly claiming to offer “safe and supportive housing.” And now, despite all of these oversights, they are placing blame on two residents who have already lost everything.

Housing as part of the carceral continuum

Non-profit and privately managed low-income housing function as parts of a broader carceral continuum, whereby residents, including those living within Atira buildings, are subjected to strict and quasi-legal program agreements in order to maintain housing. Described as “sites of social control,” the power organizations like Atira are able to exert over residents became formalized through the Residential Tenancy Act in 2024, allowing for the entrenchment of punitive policies, including prohibitive guest and family policies and non-consensual wellness checks. Long-standing relationships between housing providers and police or social and health services adds an additional layer of carceral control within many of these buildings, further solidifying non-profit managed housing’s role as part of the carceral process. With a declining number of affordable housing options in the city and few pathways to alternative housing, non-profit housing providers and managers are able to implement these kinds of tactics with minimal opposition.

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Recent lawsuits filed by Atira ultimately operate as another extension of carceral control. In pursuing civil litigation, Atira, an entity entrusted with housing people living at the sharpest edges of state neglect, has weaponized the legal system to discipline tenants for conditions of neglect that they themselves were responsible for preventing. Instead of addressing their own failure to maintain safe housing — a legal and ethical obligation they are held to under the Residential Tenancy Act and the Occupiers Liability Act— Atira is leveraging civil litigation as punishment for poverty.

These lawsuits will not recover meaningful damages because that is not the point. Rather, they operate as a tool to further control residents living in non-profit-managed buildings, demonstrating that organizations like Atira are often willing to throw anyone under the bus in the pursuit of their own preservation.

Implications for tenants rights, housing advocacy and institutional accountability

The actions undertaken by Atira may also be understood as part of a broader pattern of institutional practices aimed at suppressing tenants rights and advocacy.

Reports indicate that former Winters Hotel tenants who have been vocal in seeking justice have faced threatened and actual evictions from Atira managed buildings.

According to reporting by The Tyee, Lisa Welsh, a survivor of the Winters Hotel fire and participant in the tenant-led class action lawsuit against Atira Property Management Inc., has since been evicted from her replacement supportive housing unit, which was also run by Atira.

Welsh was reportedly evicted in June 2023, just three months after tenants filed the class action lawsuit. Her neighbour, Wendy Gaspard, who also survived the fire and was active in tenant advocacy efforts, received breach notices threatening her housing stability after assisting Welsh in retrieving her belongings.

Past research highlights that the threat of eviction or legal retaliation is a common tactic used to suppress tenant organizing, particularly in housing environments such as those managed by Atira, where power differentials between providers and tenants are especially pronounced. These actions contribute to a climate of fear among tenants, signalling that efforts to hold housing providers accountable may be met with retaliation. This dynamic exacerbates existing power imbalances, where residents have limited avenues to pursue recourse without risking their housing stability.

The Winters Hotel class action lawsuit also alleges that Atira received donations that were explicitly intended to be for the benefit of residents of the Winters Hotel. It held these donations in trust for residents of the Winters Hotel, but it is alleged that Atira did not distribute the donations in accordance with its trust obligations. We suggest that the withholding of donations further demonstrates how Atira has utilized its power, particularly over resources, to control or reprimand the actions of former Winters Hotel residents, ultimately punishing them for attempting to advocate for their housing rights.

Taken together, Atira’s actions fall in line with broader elements of non-profit housing’s day-to-day functioning in which grassroots organizing efforts are regularly suppressed and expressions of assertiveness and frustration around addressing injustices within these settings are treated punitively and coded as problematic. With few other housing options, this dynamic allows those with power over residents in non-profit managed housing to continue to provide housing that fails to meet basic health and safety requirements without fear of collective action or public scrutiny.

The cost of litigation: community impacts of Atira’s legal actions

Atira’s lawsuits against two low-income survivors of the Winters Hotel fire are emblematic of the hierarchy and concentration of power that already exists within the organizational structure of housing non-profits and property managers. Within this structure those at the top will generally work to save themselves, even if it means abandoning the same residents they claim to support.

The potential threat of legal action against individual residents adds another element of coercive control in these already highly surveilled and regulated buildings, and can be understood as a clear attempt to dissuade future residents from holding organizations like Atira accountable for their systemic negligence. While Atira’s cowardice in trying to shirk responsibility for the horrific and avoidable fires at the Winters Hotel is not surprising, it represents a new low from a non-profit housing provider.

As housing across the city becomes increasingly unaffordable, having non-profit operators manage buildings is preferable to building owners renting out buildings themselves and forcing out low-income residents. At the same time however, it is imperative that these housing operators are held accountable for their legal and ethical obligation to maintain a safe and structurally sound home for residents. Further, in addressing the demand for affordable housing, there is a need to shift our reliance on non-profit managed housing as the sole solution to the housing crisis. Instead, governments must also invest in different housing approaches, including dignified, fully public housing, community-owned co-operative housing, and a substantial increase in rent-geared-to-income housing options.

Dispatch #4 Themes

1. No respite from gendered violence

Reports on the frequency of gendered violence remain prominent issues in the community. P.O.W.E.R. members are concerned about the shifting language in how women are discussed in day-to-day interactions, including within community sites.

A more comprehensive analysis and some actionables, “Nowhere to seek safety as gender-based violence worsens under drug supply & displacement crises,” was released by a number of groups including P.O.W.E.R. last week.

2. Task force barrage continues terrorizing people outside

The highly visible, negative impacts – including deterrence of healthcare services and pushing people into isolation – of the Vancouver Police Department’s Task Force Barrage are impossible to miss. Task Force Barrage is being deployed in addition to daily, roving street sweeps, which the City of Vancouver has previously apologized for due to the violent impacts.

P.O.W.E.R. members have continuously noted the ever increasing ratio of police officers targeting, harassing and/or interacting with one or two people.

In April, VPD deputy chief Howard Chow posted proudly and suggested that Task Force Barrage was funding a horse patrol of the DTES. Three days later, the VPD released a report showing they are projected to go over their approved budget by millions in this fiscal year. In a video, interim VPD chief Steve Rai describes the “pressure” Task Force Barrage is putting on the DTES. A former Vancouver Police Board member is among those questioning the process in which the VPD received $5 million in municipal funds outside of budget discussions.

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3. Increased overdoses

Over the past two months, there were multiple points where individuals and community groups put out urgent warnings of abrupt changes of effects from the drug supply, following Canada’s adherence to the US request for further border securitization (an example).

Newsletter highlights

P.O.W.E.R. and Stop the Sweeps brought attention to the violent decampment that occurred in Kelowna — residents were stamped with happy faces if they wanted to gain access to the area to retrieve their own belongings.

Alongside other community members, P.O.W.E.R. launched a fundraiser for some of Ashtrey’s surviving family members. It remains open!

Community activity

In March, P.O.W.E.R. supported an event to announce the development of the People’s Tribunal on police killings of Indigenous Peoples.

P.O.W.E.R. joined Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Surrey Union of Drug Users and Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the toxic drug public health emergency.

Honorary P.O.W.E.R. member Garth Mullins released a new book Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs. You can read an excerpt here.

P.O.W.E.R. in the news

• Briarpatch Magazine: Harm reduction to combat racism and imperialism (Support our friends at Briarpatch by ordering a copy or two!)

• CityNews Vancouver: International Day Against Police Brutality marked in Vancouver

• Redeye Radio: Assessing re-criminalization of drug possession through a public health lens

• Sooke News Mirror: People's Tribunal launched to probe police officers involved in police-related deaths

• The Mainlander: Hard Truths About Ken Sim’s DTES Plan

New research feat. P.O.W.E.R. members

Canadian Journal of Public Health: Decriminalization undone: Assessing the amendment to British Columbia’s decriminalization of personal drug possession framework