The Vancouver Police Department has released a report showing that one Downtown Eastside resident was responsible for calling police 629 times between January 2021 and August 2024.
The majority of the calls relate to concerns about people congregating and occupying the northwest corner of Main and Hastings streets, where a pop-up tent has been set up for many months, if not years.
The resident, whose name is not disclosed in the report, complained of music being blasted from a portable speaker below his window and alleged the people were selling drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.
“On any given day, you can stop on the corner and find at least two to three coolers packed with stolen alcohol, thousands of dollars of contraband cigarettes, thousands of dollars of drugs, several weapons and God knows whatever other stuff is there,” the resident alleged in one of his emails to the Vancouver Police Board.
His emails included images and video of people on the corner.
Of the 629 calls, 435 were classified by the E-Comm dispatch service as a disturbance, 61 as an unwanted person, 23 for drugs, 19 for suspicious circumstances, 16 for assisting the general public and 12 as a mischief in progress.
Another 18 were “classified by other classifications” and 45 calls were for unrelated disturbances in the area, according to the VPD report, which went before the police board Sept. 19.
During the same time period of the 629 calls, two other residents who live on the same floor as the complainant initiated a total of 41 disturbance calls for the same issues.
'Open tent is a challenge'
The resident lodged a formal complaint in March 2024 with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which forwarded the matter to the police board, which ordered a review.
The resident complained that police weren’t doing their jobs in enforcing the law and wanted the police board to do something about it. At the Sept. 19 meeting, board members discussed the complaint and heard from Supt. Matt Harty.
Harty, who conducted the review with Staff Sgt. Kyle Davies, said all 629 calls were investigated by police “and addressed appropriately based on the call type and the circumstances.”
That said, Harty acknowledged “the open tent is a challenge for many residents in the neighbourhood, and so as part of our next steps, VPD will continue addressing the specific crime issues that are raised in the report, with targeted investigations as well as high visible patrols.”
Added Harty: “From the community side, we'll continue working with our Indigenous protocol officer and as well as our city partners [Vancouver] Coastal Health, BC Housing [and] several non-profit agencies to seek a long-term solution for the permanent removal of the tent, which is contrary to the street and traffic bylaw.”
In responding to a question from board chairperson Frank Chong about the complainant’s concerns, Harty said it wasn’t a case of the police and its partner agencies “dragging” its feet on the matter.
“It's just that there's a lot of varying priorities,” he said. “This one's now risen to the top, so it's something that we'll be focusing on.”
East Hastings Street encampment
Deputy Chief Howard Chow added to Harty’s explanation, noting the calls were generated at a time when several blocks of sidewalks along the Hasting Street corridor were filled with tents and their occupants.
The encampment was dismantled in April 2023 after a wide-scale city-led effort to remove tents and structures along the strip. Police continue to escort city crews to ensure the sidewalks don’t get filled up again with tents.
“Pretty tough for that year-period to be asking this tent to be removed when we had tents up and down the sidewalks,” he said, but acknowledged the call load from the complainant.
“When you look at that number, it's staggering — 629 times that a police officer has gone to investigate, and it's a significant high use of resources.”
Chow also pointed out police responded to more than 1,000 calls to the former Howard Johnson Hotel on the Granville Street strip, which is a supportive housing site.
He didn’t provide a time period, or elaborate on the nature of calls to the building now known as the Lugat, although the 1100-block of Granville Street has been notorious for street disorder.
“Working with [arts, culture and community services] at the city, I think we're going to get some traction on this and start looking at some other options,” Chow said of the concerns raised about people congregating at the tent at Main and Hastings.
'Sophisticated network layers'
The VPD report to the board said many people occupying the sidewalks in the Downtown Eastside are territorial, particularly those who travel to the area to sell drugs for organized crime groups.
They often use violence as a means to control their territory, said the report, adding that any lost territory is absorbed by rival groups or drug traffickers. As a result, it is common to observe the same individuals in the same areas of the Downtown Eastside.
“Drug traffickers use street disorder to help disguise their activities in the [Downtown Eastside],” the report said.
“Many of the drug traffickers establishing territories in the [Downtown Eastside] insulate themselves using sophisticated network layers while employing individuals as ‘lookouts’ who watch for police.”
Police presence often displaces street disorder to neighbouring communities such as Chinatown and Gastown, and conversely, displaces disorder back to the Hasting Street corridor when those communities are patrolled, the report said.
The police board has now closed the complaint and will inform the complainant about the next steps VPD and other agencies will take to remove the tent in question, along with working with individuals on the corner.
