Umbrella agency urged for DTES support groups VPD chief proposes body with 'director for most vulnerable'

"Some have suggested this was a de facto containment policy whereby all of these problems in the Vancouver region were concentrated in this one small area," the report says.

Chu acknowledged the police department has to accept its share of the blame for what has happened.

He cited a 1994 decision to move most police services out of the area to new headquarters on Cambie Street as contributing to the area's decline, with some businesses leaving as a result and residents feeling less safe.

He recommended that the department move back into the Downtown Eastside, as the presence of hundreds of officers filtering through the area going to and from work or out on patrol would provide a bonus of free policing in a district notorious for violent crimes and stricken with street disorder, prostitution and the public sale of illegal drugs.

The area's unsavoury reputation is known internationally, the report notes.

Of the 16,000 people who live in the communities of Strathcona, Gastown and Chinatown, 2,500 have been identified as most vulnerable, having chronic and multiple problems related to homelessness, addiction, mental illness, criminal behaviour, poor health and sex-trade survival work, the report says.

There was myriad government, private, and philanthropic agencies providing services to this group but despite all the money and effort the results were disappointing, Chu said.

The report says: "While many plans [in the past] have called for increased collaboration, there has been a lack of effective administrative oversight and there is no established body with a specific mandate to improve life in the Downtown Eastside."

"Everyone knows it's a massive problem that [became] worse. That's the easy part," Chu said in an interview. "The hard part is, what are we going to do to fix it?

"Every agency there is focused on its own services. We need to integrate the services so we all work together. I know we all say we are doing this, but it's time to end the lip service," he said.

"We need someone to hold a hammer over the agencies' heads to make people work together."

Chu said success was being measured by the number of employees an agency has and the size of its budget.

"Success shouldn't be based on the size of staff and money spent, but on results. The measurement of success has to be based on what is happening to clients," Chu said.

As a theoretical target, the report suggests a goal of reducing the number of most vulnerable people from 2,500 to 2,000 over five years.

The report calls for the federal, provincial and local governments to establish a committee of senior staff -- at the deputy minister and top administrator level -- who would then appoint a director.

"With appropriate action the lives of the vulnerable in the DTES can be improved and a positive ripple effect can be achieved in surrounding communities and the province through the reduction of crime, public disorder and improvements in the health crisis," the report says.

Dr. William McEwan, director of the University of B.C.'s schizophrenia program, was amazed that such a report would originate from the police and not from any of the health or social service agencies operating in the Downtown Eastside.

"I applaud the police for doing this and for being critical of their mistakes. I don't hear this coming from the health or social agencies there," McEwan said.

"The most-vulnerable-person description would fit 20 per cent of the people living in the Downtown Eastside and no one takes care of them," he said.

He endorsed Chu's call for a director for the most vulnerable and for radical changes to the way services are dispensed.

"I could walk you down Powell and Cordova and point out all the different agencies there to help people," McEwan said. "One man I know has five different agencies taking care of him, but he's living in an alley."

He said the present system wasn't designed to deal with the most vulnerable who need help but refuse to seek it.

"This group doesn't have the capacity to seek help, so we [need] to redesign the system to take care of them. Some might need to be certified under the Mental Health Act and forced into treatment. People might say, 'That's not right,' but we need to do something different because what we are doing now isn't working," McEwan said.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said he was pleased the police were pushing for new ways to deal with the problems of the Downtown Eastside.

Asked about the appointment of a director, Robertson said: "I'm intrigued by the possibility of a one-stop shop to ensure the integration of services and a co-ordination of effort, particularly if it results in the expansion of mental health and addiction treatment services.

"But all parties would need to commit to making it work and put in the necessary resources.

"We need more collaboration and integration of services and we should build on the partnership that is flourishing now between the city and the province," Robertson said, referring to a number of programs undertaken to open shelters for the homeless and provide more housing through the purchase and conversion of old hotels to single-resident-occupancy suites.

David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and a founder of Pivot Legal Society, which provides legal services to people in the Downtown Eastside, was skeptical the report would produce any meaningful changes, but supported Chu's concept of creating a Downtown Eastside czar.

"If the provincial and federal governments would listen to someone about what should be done to solve these challenges and put money behind it then, yes, it's a great idea," Eby said.

However, such a person would have no authority over the non-government groups and agencies that provided the bulk of the funds spent on the disadvantaged in the area, he said.

"What we need are more federal dollars. The investment by the province is substantial, they are buying SROs there, but the feds are nowhere as involved as they should be," Eby said.

In Washington states King County, an increase in sales tax was approved in 2008 to raise $48 million to treat mentally ill and drug-dependent homeless people living mostly in downtown Seattle.

None of the money will be spent on providing housing for the homeless; it will all go for treatment. Advocates for the program maintain that treatment will break the cycle of mental illness and drug addiction that leads to homelessness.

gbellett@vancouversun.com