Amid extreme heat, peer workers worry for unhoused residents in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

Peer workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside say a sustained week of hot temperatures has proven extremely dangerous for unhoused people in the neighbourhood.

"We're already in a very, very challenging overdose crisis where people are overdosing and dying in this community every day," said Sarah Blyth, executive director of the Overdose Prevention Society. 

"If you add really high temperatures to that, people are passing out in the sun, people are unconscious everywhere."

Their concerns have been heightened after a tent encampment that lined East Hastings Street was dismantled in April, depriving many unhoused people of shelter and shade.

The workers are speaking out after an unnaturally hot week in Canada, with Tuesday considered the hottest day on record throughout the world.

Residents of Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood say more needs to be done to protect unhoused people from extreme heat, especially when it comes to providing cooling spaces.

Research on the deadly 2021 heat dome — during which temperatures soared to record levels, including in several B.C. communities that sweltered in temperatures of more than 40 C — has found that extreme heat killed people with schizophrenia at higher rates than others, and people with substance use disorders were also disproportionately affected.

Dave Hamm, a board member at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), said that after the April sweeps to remove structures from the neighbourhood's sidewalks, many unhoused people have been left without appropriate shelter from the hot sun.

"We see a lot of umbrellas now, big umbrellas, tarps that are sort of stretched out and used, you know, as a shade," he told CBC News.

Hamm said he hopes that, as the summer goes on, city workers will try not to remove personal belongings that may be an unhoused person's only shelter.

Lack of indoor cooling spaces

Blyth said the lack of indoor cooling spaces close to the neighbourhood is a concern, as many overnight shelters are not open during the day.

The Downtown Eastside has consistently seen some of the highest temperatures in the city during heat waves, with a lack of tree cover in the neighbourhood causing an "urban heat island" effect.

"We don't want to get the only last resort for a person is that they have to be ambulanced to a hospital," Blyth said. "We need to have really, really easy access to safe spaces that we can walk people over to."

Blyth also said she hopes community members show up with donations as the summer goes on.

While a panel examining the 2021 heat dome found that nearly all the people who died were indoors, Hamm says that the Downtown Eastside community played a large role in ensuring homeless people there did not die.

"We have a great community that comes in, rallies when it comes to a time," he said.