– by Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee –
When city workers confiscate personal belongings like tents and harm reduction supplies from people sheltering on the street, it increases their risk of non-fatal overdose and physical and sexual violence, according to a new study.
Colloquially known as “street sweeps,” the practice refers to the clearing of makeshift residences from sidewalks and parks by city workers and park rangers. They are often accompanied by police.
While the study shows correlation, not causation, it’s fair to say the practice is dangerous and puts marginalized people at an increased risk of harm, said Kanna Hayashi, St. Paul’s Hospital chair in substance use research and associate professor in the faculty of health sciences at Simon Fraser University.
Hayashi is a co-author of the peer-reviewed study, which will be published in the journal Public Health.
Vancouver has been confiscating items from people sheltering in public spaces since 2008, according to the study.
Street sweeps need to end, Hayashi told The Tyee.
“No one should be sheltering outside. Homelessness is a symptom of failed or unjust policies,” she added. “We shouldn’t criminalize people who have no other way to live other than sheltering outside. They have nowhere else to go.”
Researchers interviewed 691 people between December 2021 and May 2023 and recruited participants from the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study, the At-Risk Youth Study and the AIDS Care Cohort to Evaluate Exposure to Survival Services study.
Participants were asked if they were experiencing homelessness, if they had experienced depression, physical or sexual violence, and if they had been able to access social services.
Of the 233 people who said they had experienced homelessness during the study period, nearly one-quarter said they’d had personal items confiscated by city workers.
The study says people often lose personal belongings, medications and irreplaceable personal artifacts.
“Any items you need for your survival are taken,” Hayashi said, adding that once possessions are seized, they’re “hard to get back.”
The Tyee asked for an interview to discuss whether the City of Vancouver would consider changing its strategy given the study’s findings.
No one was made available. Instead, a spokesperson emailed a statement that said the city has “a legal responsibility to enforce the Street and Traffic bylaw and ensure public safety.”
Structures that block sidewalks create accessibility issues for pedestrians and businesses, the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson also took issue with the term “street sweep.”
“The city does not engage in ‘street sweeps,’ which implies people are being displaced or moved along,” the statement said.
However, the spokesperson didn’t dispute the study’s findings.
The city’s Integrated Response Team, which was introduced in 2024, will “always seek voluntary compliance” when asking someone to pack up their things but “where necessary will impound and store materials for the owner’s retrieval within 30 days,” the spokesperson said. While this is happening people can stay in place, they added.
Increased risk of overdose
Nineteen per cent of survey participants who had experienced a street sweep in the last six months also experienced a non-fatal overdose. By comparison, of the 536 study participants who had not experienced a non-fatal overdose, only 12 per cent had experienced a street sweep in the past six months.
Hayashi said street sweeps increase the risk of overdose in two ways.
First, when a person lives in a tent city they have neighbours who can help them in the event of an overdose, which means they are more likely to survive. But a tent city is highly visible and might be more likely to experience a street sweep, Hayashi said.
The more isolated a person is, the more likely they are to die when they overdose because there’s no one around to administer naloxone or call 911, she added.
Second, people who have had items confiscated may be displaced and pushed into a less familiar or visible area. This separates a person from their regular drug dealer.
That can increase a person’s risk of overdose, Hayashi said, because they may use in an isolated location and not have anyone around to administer naloxone or call 911; they may use amphetamines to stay awake and mobile to avoid being further targeted, which increases their risk of overdose from stimulants; or they may be going into withdrawal and buy drugs from an unfamiliar supplier or not have time for safety checks like having their drugs tested.
Street sweeps may also take away a person’s drugs, pushing them to buy from the unregulated toxic supply again and increasing their risk of getting a toxic dose, she said. Having harm reduction supplies confiscated may also affect a person’s ability to respond to an overdose.
Increased risk of violence
The study found that more than one in four people who had items confiscated also reported experiencing violent victimization.
That’s a pretty “significant association,” according to the study.
The study asked only yes/no questions, so it’s not totally clear why this happens, Hayashi said. But she added that it’s possible people experience violence during a street sweep or when they’ve been displaced to less visible or more isolated locations.
The study found people were at elevated risk of violence for about six months after a street sweep.
Confiscations could also put an individual at risk of violence from a drug dealer when debts aren’t able to be paid, the study says.
Not able to access services
Street sweeps can also affect a person’s ability to access social services.
Of the 94 study participants who reported experiencing street sweeps, over one-third said they had tried but been unable to access housing services. Just over one-quarter said they had tried but been unable to access primary care clinics. And one-fifth said they had tried but been unable to access supervised consumption sites.
Sixteen per cent said they had tried but been unable to access addiction treatment, and seven per cent said they had been forced into addiction treatment or other health services by police.
Street sweeps are likely physically displacing people, which means they are farther away from services they want to access, struggle to access services because of mobility issues or are unfamiliar with nearby services, the study says.
Outreach workers may not know where to find someone after they are displaced by a street sweep, and sweeps may feed into people’s mistrust of government programs and make them more hesitant to access help, the study continues.
“Our findings also suggest a vicious cycle, wherein the inability to access housing services heightens vulnerability to the confiscation of belongings, which in turn leads to additional barriers to accessing services, including housing,” the authors note.
More housing, more storage
The solution, Hayashi told The Tyee, is for the City of Vancouver to stop clearing temporary shelters and confiscating people’s items and instead focus on getting unhoused people settled in long-term or permanent housing.
While there are short-term or temporary supportive-housing spaces available, they may have restrictions, such as prohibiting ongoing drug use, that limit who can access them, she said. Short-term solutions often mean people end up on the street when the supports end, she added.
The city could also help people struggling with unstable housing by investing in more storage solutions, she added.
Shortly after The Tyee spoke with Hayashi, the province and city announced more funding for the Aboriginal Front Door Society’s bin storage program, which lets people store items in a large rubber bin and access their things between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily.
Ian Bee, a staffer and member of the Aboriginal Front Door Society, said around 100 people access their stored items every day and that the program is at capacity. As of Sept. 1, the program is downsizing to free up space for a winter shelter, he said.
Bee said two more bin storage programs will be opening up in the Downtown Eastside but that long-term funding is needed, rather than short-term temporary grants.
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