Today (June 12) will see the last run of the Downtown Eastside’s Mobile Access Project (MAP), according to the Women’s Information Safe Haven Drop-In Centre.

After six years, the Mobile Access Project, a van that provides outreach services to survival-sex workers every night between 10:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., has been forced to shut down due to a lack of funding, a WISH press release said.

MAP was developed in 2004 as a way of addressing the issue of violence against women in the Downtown Eastside.

The converted ambulance offers condoms, clean needles, emergency medical services, and information throughout the night to sex-trade workers. The van also collected approximately 95 percent of bad-date reports—warnings and descriptions of violent offenders made by sex workers—which are then distributed to organizations and police detachments across the Lower Mainland.

“It’s an essential service, one that not only literally saves lives but reduces the environment of continuing violence and high-risk behaviours found on our streets at night. This is about protecting and providing realistic alternatives for some of the most vulnerable women in our society,” said Kate Gibson, executive director of WISH, in the press release.

On May 26, after making efforts to “engage the provincial government to support MAP through repeated requests, accompanied by letters of support from community allies,” WISH and the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society “reluctantly took steps to shut the program down”.

The van was staffed by a team of support and peer-support workers. According to WISH board chair Jeanne Legare, the monthly cost of the outreach operation was approximately $20,000.