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APRIL 4, 2023 • VOL. 56 NO. 7 • VANCOUVER, B.C.
Equity, diversity & health Health researchers are increasingly considering gender diversity By EMMA SHULAR
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A VPD officer monitors East Hastings street during the city's first attempt at decampment in August 2022 . PHOTO BY JOSHUA FISCHER
Camp, decamp, re-camp Residents kicked out of Hastings tents face more uncertainty By THEA CATIPON
As the City of Vancouver continues to evict people from the Hastings Street tent encampment, those being ousted say they have nowhere to go. At least, nowhere safe. The city, which has been attempting to remove people from the tent encampment on Hastings since last August, is suggesting people head to shelters or single-room occupancy housing, or SROs. But advocates and those being moved say those options are not viable. Stuart Panko, who was recently evicted from his tent on Hastings, said that given the option of a shelter or an SRO, he would stay in his tent. “I feel safer on the street,” Panko said Monday at a press conference held by drug user advocacy group VANDU. Monday, bins provided by the city were filled with evicted tent residents’ belongings. Tents with signs reading “This tent is my home” were taken down.
Ryan Sudds, an organizer for Sweeps, say leaked documents from encampment advocacy group Stop the city showed plans for a more the Sweeps, said he has seen one aggressive approach expected to person whose tent was being taken begin Tuesday. The documents down in the middle of the rain refus- appear to show police will become ing to move for 20 minutes despite more involved in removing people having police and structures, and city staff according to "They're faced with VANDU. surrounding him. Downtown this forceful, but “He just Eastside housdidn't want his ing advocate potentially violent home stolen,” Fiona York Sudds said. says the possipolice eviction.” Sudds said a ble police — FIONA YORK, DTES HOUSING ADVOCATE police car with involvement a mental nurse could simply was subsequently called because the lead residents to shuffle to side resident was purportedly in a mental streets, shelters or somewhere less health crisis. safe to prevent a violent interaction The city will continue to “clear with police and enforcers. structures” and remove residents “That may or may not be a longfrom their tents until the encamp- term option for them,” York said. ment’s eventual closing, according “But they may do that because to a statement released by the City they're faced with this forceful, but of Vancouver. potentially violent police eviction.” But multiple advocacy groups, It may also steer residents to less including VANDU and Stop the visible places and from which they
will emerge to simply access community workers and services available to them, she said. “I think for the most part people will just become more isolated and less visible,” York said. The Voice reached out to the Vancouver Police Department and spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison for an interview but did not receive a response by print deadline. However, according to a statement sent by the City of Vancouver, the actions in the decampment of East Hastings are in line with the city’s policy to address a “life safety risk.” The city has been encouraging voluntary removal of the structures placed around the city and has since removed 600 structures since August, according to a city email. The city has linked unsafely stored propane tanks to recent dangerous fires in the area. It has also blamed the encampment for multiple assaults and noted an increase in weapon possession in the neighbourhood.
he importance of gender diversity and related health effects aren’t recognized in healthcare as well as they could be, according to researchers at Western University under the Trans PULSE Canada project. Kalysha Closson, a health sciences instructor and gender equity researcher with Simon Fraser University, said the inclusion of people with diverse identities in research is important to ensure all voices are being represented fairly. “A big part of the work that we do in my research is making sure that we engage with people that have livedin/living experiences of the groups that we're interested in working with,” Closson said. The Institute of Gender and Health (IGH), a federal government research institute, kicked off its IGH Listening Tour: Researcher Townhall on Monday, April 3 with a presentation followed by discussion with an audience primarily made up of academics. Monday's event marked the first date of a national tour. Angela Kaida, a speaker at the event and an SFU instructor, said,“Equality means everybody has the same; equity means that we have the resources, support [and] attention based on what we need,” she said. “Health outcomes are not equitably distributed, resources are not equitably distributed and how we set priorities for whose health matters is not equitable either.” Kaida said she sees the role of the IGH as important in the research field. “The last [IGH] strategic plan was probably created in 2016 or so to guide the way forward,” Kaida said. “The world we're in today — the threats that are being placed on the lives of trans people, … the ways that policies are being made, not informed at all by the science or about the lived realities of trans — is really frightening.” Third-year Langara nursing student Robyn Culley said inclusion in the workplace has improved. “Maybe curriculum changes in terms of educating healthcare practitioners, I think that's the first step,” they said. “But it also needs to be a culture thing.”