Downtown Eastside group says there is no excuse in the way of a 24-hour drop-in for women
The Downtown Eastside Women's Centre has spotted an opportunity in a funding-and-services shuffle that Vancouver Coastal Health has begun in the Downtown Eastside
A cot in a shelter is far from the answer to Vancouver’s homeless problem, Carol Martin said in a café on Main Street. But it can serve as a stepping stone.
“They can get access to better housing, to somewhere that is safe,” explained the victim-services worker with the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC).
Since 2006, DEWC has operated an emergency shelter for women on Cordova Street across from Oppenheimer Park. Its low-barrier approach means virtually no woman is ever turned away. Every morning, though, the organization is forced to ask the people who spend the night there to leave the building and return to the street.
“Where do women go the rest of the time?” Martin asked. “They’re sleeping in parks, they’re sleeping under bridges, they’re hanging out in doorways or hanging out at community centres.”
Now, DEWC has spotted an opportunity in a funding-and-services shuffle that Vancouver Coastal Health has begun in the Downtown Eastside.
DEWC asks the women to leave the shelter each morning because, during the day, the building at 412 East Cordova serves as a drop-in centre for drug users, one that is run by the Portland Hotel Society. DEWC only takes over the space each evening.
But on April 7, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) revealed that it would no longer provide the Portland Hotel Society with $634,000 in annual funding that the organization has used to run the drop-in centre since 2003. (Instead, VCH is giving Lookout Emergency Aid Society a $203,000 bump to extend hours at another drop-in centre nearby on Powell Street.)
The 50 cots that DEWC offers at 412 East Cordova rely on B.C. Housing money. The province has said that funding will not be affected by the changes VCH is making.
In a telephone interview, DEWC executive director Alice Kendall said that what it all means is that DEWC’s emergency-shelter program could now expand to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Kendall argued that this is something the community needs. As evidence, she recalled there was a string of sexual assaults on women in 2011 at the overnight shelter run by First United Church at East Hastings Street and Gore Avenue.
“First United is an extreme example,” Kendall noted. “But it is what happens. Women are harassed, bullied, and all of these other things within these kinds of spaces.”
She recalled that B.C. Housing said it would respond to the incidents at First United with a 24-hour drop-in space for high-needs women.
“That was 2011; it’s 2016 and it still doesn’t exist,” Kendall said. “All these years, they’ve been saying that they can’t find a location. Now there is one. So we’ll see.”
An April 7 VCH media release acknowledges the newly available real-estate.
“With the new drop-in freeing up space at the former DURC [Drug User Resource Centre] site, VCH will be exploring options with B.C. Housing and community partners to ensure best use of space in the DTES [Downtown Eastside],” it reads.
Vancouver Coastal Health declined to grant an interview and referred questions to B.C. Housing.
B.C. Housing spokesperson Laura Matthews said the provincial agency is in discussions with VCH on the matter but that “no final decisions have been made”.
In a telephone interview, Vision Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang said the city would welcome an expansion of the services DEWC offers today at 412 East Cordova. But he emphasized that B.C. Housing is holding the purse strings.
“It’s in B.C. Housing’s court right now,” Jang told the Straight. “Our staff are certainly working with them. We’d like to see more service down there for women.”
According to the city’s 2015 report on homelessness, there were 356 homeless women counted in March of that year. That compares to 1,057 homeless men and 23 people who identified as transgender or other. Of the total number of respondents, 32 percent identified as aboriginal.
“Shelters continue to be over-capacity with daily turn-aways,” that report notes. It recommends the city “focus on new opportunities” and develop targeted housing and shelter options specifically for “women who have experienced violence or are at risk”, among other groups.
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