Members of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside’s community have praised new police guidelines to protect sex-trade workers, but are also raising concerns about whether they will make a difference. The police released an eight-point set of guidelines in January stressing that the department considers the safety and security of sex workers a priority and reinforcing that [...]
Jennifer Allan, a well-known activist in the Downtown Eastside, co-created DTES Cop Watch over a year ago as a new way to discourage police misbehaviour. The project uses social media to keep the police constantly in the public eye. Like other police-monitoring organizations around the United States and Europe, DTES Cop Watch observes and documents [...]
A scientific evaluation of the Downtown Eastside’s unique women-only drug treatment program — one that is being threatened with closure at the end of November — shows that it has been remarkably successful in recruiting the most vulnerable women in the neighbourhood and reducing their overall drug use. But Vancouver Coastal Health is dismissing those [...]
An experiment in having local residents of Vancouver’s famous Downtown Eastside give guided walking tours generated enthusiastic response from guides and tour members. But the unusual tours also drew criticism from those who were unhappy that they had been put on display with no notice. Organized by the Union Gospel Mission for Homelessness Action Week in [...]
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