Downtown Eastside advocate says city has failed people forced to sleep outside in snow

An advocate on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside says she found multiple people sleeping in the snow Wednesday morning and is criticizing the city for what she calls a failure to help vulnerable people during a crisis and a major snowstorm.

Sarah Blyth, executive director of the Overdose Prevention Society, shared some heartbreaking photos online, one of a person asleep in the snow and another person slumped in a wheelchair.

“Some of them are sleeping right on the street with no blankets or anything. It’s pretty bad,” she told CityNews.

“I found a guy, he was outside sleeping with no blanket, no nothing, no tarp, just with snow all over him. I woke him up this morning and made sure he got to a shelter, but I was looking around on the streets this morning, and there was lots of people in that situation.”

Vancouver City Councillor Rebecca Bligh says the city has been helping people, but if someone spots a person in a medical emergency, they should call 911, or they can call 311 to help someone get inside a shelter space.

“I understand there is cause for concern when we see people outside who need help, who need to be brought indoors,” Bligh said. “Our city staff are working across the city of course, we do have more folks in the Downtown Eastside who are struggling with homelessness who need supports, but of course, we have homelessness right across our city – so they’re spread out right across our city.”

But Blyth says the city needs to be more proactive in helping unhoused people get into shelter spaces, as many don’t have cell phones to get shelter information or have mobility issues.

On top of that, she says they’re having trouble securing spots inside.

“Seeing them outside in the morning and talking to them about ‘there isn’t enough spaces,’ that they’re standing in line-ups, and they’re going from one shelter to the next, and they’re ending up outside for the whole night, sort of just giving up and hoping they survive the night,” she said.

Ahead of the snowstorm, park rangers have been enforcing tenting bylaws in Oppenheimer Park, taking unhoused people’s shelters and belongings in the past two weeks. This was even during last week’s arctic blast, and many criticizing the city for its actions during inclement weather.

“Of course, we continue to work with the non-profits like UGM, and others, as well as the province, in recent additional funding, to make sure we can work in partnership to meet the need that is great on our streets right now,” she said.