Vancouver mayor defends Yaletown overdose prevention site despite criticism

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The mayor of Vancouver’s support for a permanent overdose prevention site in Yaletown has drawn criticism from at least one opposition member on council.

Coun. Melissa de Genova of NPA Vancouver is accusing Mayor Kennedy Stewart of crossing a line by asking supporters of his re-election campaign to email council.

She says there’s been little to no consultation on the prevention site, although 115 speakers have signed up to address council on the matter.

RELATED: New overdose prevention site in Vancouver up for debate in council

In a tweet Tuesday, de Genova says she supports the city’s Four Pillars approach and overdose prevention site.

“But it doesn’t work unless we come together,” she adds. “Consultation and conversation with community builds trust and support.”

Stewart is offering no apologies for asking his supporters to lobby city council to support the new overdose prevention site, which would be inside a city-owned building at Seymour and Helmcken streets.

However, he’s worried that some councillors are wavering and may not approve it.

“This is something I committed to through my election campaign. We had a mayor’s emergency task force on overdoses, which was unanimously supported on a number of occasions. What I’ve been hearing is some councillors may not vote for this. So I think it’s important to push as hard as we can to make sure that we save lives,” Stewart said.

He insists he’s doing everything he can to keep people from dying in the downtown core — which remains the epicentre of B.C.’s overdose crisis.

“Vancouver Coastal Health has been operating an overdose prevention site van on the site for many months, and now they want to replace it with a more permanent inside facility, which I completely support because we have to save lives and that’s what this will do,” Stewart said.

“An overdose prevention site’s only going to help everybody. First of all, it has been operating there in a mobile fashion for the last seven months, so we’ll save lives, but it will also bring people indoors, which will also help with how the community’s functioning at the moment.”

He added more than 100 speakers have signed up to speak about the site before city council votes, either Tuesday night or at its next meeting.

A staff report suggests something needs to be done in that neighbourhood because of increased drug activity since the pandemic started and some homeless people from the Downtown Eastside were provided housing in the area.