Overnight shelters in Vancouver’s DTES not cutting it; advocate calls for daytime respite

One Downtown Eastside advocate says the City of Vancouver opening up shelter space overnight doesn’t do much to help unhoused people who have to spend all day outdoors in extreme weather.

While the heavy rain swamped much of southern B.C. in recent days, the City opened additional shelter spaces from as early as 9 p.m. until the next morning. However, Karen Ward says that’s simply not good enough.

“It rained all weekend,” she said.

“We have literally no place for people to just get out of the rain at all. There’s no … shelter from the storm literally … just to dry off until that late.”

Additional shelter space is available tonight due to extreme weather:
Directions Youth Services Centre – 1138 Burrard St.
Tenth Church – 10th Ave. and Ontario St.
Cascades Church – 3833 Boundary Rd.
Evelyne Saller Centre – 320 Alexander St. pic.twitter.com/6JacZmCRQM

— City of Vancouver (@CityofVancouver) November 15, 2021

As the rain poured down on the city, Ward says people in the Downtown Eastside experienced it as “endless” since eating outside was incredibly difficult, their tents and umbrellas were flying away and their socks were soaked.

Ward says from what she’s seen,  the city and province have tackled issues in the DTES through a “wait and see” approach instead of planning ahead to reduce harm.

“We’re waiting for people to end up in a really bad state before we even open the door and that’s just not preventing harm. We need to think of it as preventing things from getting as bad as they do, instead of just showing up when everything’s already as bad as it could get.”

Ward says a place for vulnerable people to dry off their clothes and belongings is needed. And a warm place to eat is a necessity during the day.

“We need to think of this as respite centers, not shelters, but as respite,” she says.

“Whether it’s heat, or whether it’s rain, or snow, or cold — it is something that’s going to be an ongoing problem. We need to prevent … extreme suffering and extreme harm.”

She says it’s time the province and city recognize the system in place are inadequate, and to start being proactive.

“What we deal with on a daily basis in Downtown Eastside is like a forever emergency. This is like band-aids, on top of band-aids, on top of band-aids. And at this point is just band-aids all the way down. There’s no system left.”

In an email response from the City, it says warm and safe drop-in spaces are available.

According to the City, Carnegie, Evelyne Saller and The Gathering Place Community Centres offer hot meals, showers, laundry facilities during the day.

• Carnegie Community Centre is open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Gathering Place Community Centre is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with washroom access only available between 8 p.m. and midnight
• Evelyne Saller Community Centre is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends

“The City is committed to ensuring all residents have a safe, warm, place to come inside during the winter months and will be releasing details of our winter response strategy later this week,” the email reads.

Additional day drop-in centres can be found by searching ‘drop-in’ in the city online at BC 211.