Larry Campbell served as Vancouver mayor between 2002 and 2005. He was later appointed to the Senate and held that role until he retired at 75 in 2023.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
Larry Campbell hadn’t walked the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for a long time, even though that’s the place that boosted him to become B.C.’s chief coroner, the inspiration for the TV series Da Vinci’s Inquest and then mayor for one term.
But after a downtown meeting a few weeks ago that he’d flown in for from his home on Galiano Island, he decided to go by foot, instead of the usual drive, along Hastings Street, the main thoroughfare of the Downtown Eastside.
“By the time I got in my car at the end, I was weeping,” Mr. Campbell said recently in an interview.
The sight of folded-over, unconscious fentanyl users on the sidewalks of the long-time troubled neighbourhood devastated him. He found himself wondering all the way along whether he should check to see if they were alive.
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Shortly after, he ranted to NDP MLA and former Vancouver police officer Terry Yung about how awful it was, so much worse than when he became mayor 23 years ago and pushed for the continent’s first supervised-injection site to open.
That quickly led to a long talk with Premier David Eby. And ultimately to the announcement this week that Mr. Campbell was going to spend six months as the province’s special adviser, with a mandate to “provide focused intergovernmental co-ordination and leadership to drive forward solutions with the community to deliver better outcomes.”
The sight of folded-over, unconscious fentanyl users on the sidewalks of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside left Mr. Campbell in tears.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
After his term as mayor between 2002 and 2005, Mr. Campbell was appointed to the Senate and held that role until he retired at 75 in 2023. He now has a daunting task in front of him.
“Six months isn’t very long but I’m going to try to get as much done as I can,” said Mr. Campbell, as he mused for an hour in his characteristic unfiltered way.
From what he can tell so far, the area worsened when, first, fentanyl started sparking massive overdose deaths and dramatic changes in people’s behaviour, and second, when COVID-19 disrupted so many existing patterns.
“Fixing” the Downtown Eastside isn’t just about housing or mental-health services. It’s also about addressing drug addiction, gangs taking over the residential hotels, fire outbreaks, the need for some kind of economy besides convenience stores and street sales, the rampant disorder and garbage on the sidewalks, and more.
But with many of those issues, the debate is polarized.
Some advocates argue the situation in the neighbourhood would be hugely improved if the province committed to a more effective and widespread program for safe drug supply. Others are adamant that the safe drug approach has caused social problems for the general public and ongoing pain for those using drugs.
Mr. Campbell acknowledged the Downtown Eastside is a Hydra-headed problem that will take a lot of energy to understand.
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His perception of what’s wrong has already shifted in the past few days. In an interview Monday before his appointment was announced, he said he thought the problem in the area was a lack of co-ordination among the housing, health and community economic development agencies, and others.
By Wednesday, after meeting with people from those agencies and going for another walk along the street with Nathan Allen, who worked on Mr. Campbell’s election campaign in 2002 and will be his researcher on this project, he said he now thinks he was wrong about that.
He’d learned that about 30 community and business groups meet every week to talk about the current problems and possible solutions. So now he’s looking for other holes to fix.
Mr. Campbell is starting the six-month, $92,000-plus-expenses contract with a positive reception: Service providers remember his compassion for the neighbourhood from years ago.
Mr. Campbell says 'fixing' the neighbourhood isn’t just about housing or mental-health services. It is also about addressing drug addiction, gangs taking over the residential hotels, fire outbreaks and more.Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
Almost a dozen people who work with Downtown Eastside community services attended the news conference this week announcing his appointment.
“I couldn’t have thought of a better person,” said Sarah Blyth, who has spent most of the past decade trying to save people overdosing on fentanyl through the Overdose Prevention Society. “I feel a bit of optimism, which I haven’t had in a long time.”
Mr. Campbell has publicly said he thinks B.C. made a mistake in how it approached drug decriminalization. “I was a big supporter. I still believe there’s a place for decriminalization, for safe supply. The problem is we bought a dream, but we didn’t have a plan.”
And he doesn’t have a problem with the city’s controversial proposal to allow for more private housing development in the neighbourhood.
“If the city wants to rezone, they’re going to do it. But no developer is going to come in there anyway. It’s the Downtown Eastside and they can’t sell what they have now everywhere else.”
But Micheal Vonn, who runs PHS Community Services, one of the big-four non-profit housing operations, said she worries about the parameters the province has put on Mr. Campbell’s mandate.
“I think he’s coming at this honestly and he’s taken this job because there’s something he thinks he can do,” she said.
But she said the government appointment asks Mr. Campbell to focus on making the existing system more efficient, as though it’s just a matter of reorganizing already adequate services.
“The services are not there,” Ms. Vonn said.
What she and other non-profit housing operators would like is additional resources to help people who are increasingly more disabled and more brain-damaged by the effects of fentanyl.
“Resources for acuity, that’s the number 1 thing we need,” said Ms. Vonn, adding that many organizations are on the brink of not being able to function because they’re so overwhelmed by the increasing challenges.
B.C. Conservative MLA Claire Rattée, a former Kitimat councillor who is her party’s mental health and addictions critic, said the NDP government knows what needs to be done. They just don’t want to do it because it’s not popular with their traditional supporters.
“There’s really simple fixes,” said Ms. Rattée, who talked about fixing the system with more oversight and efficiency, as well as providing more opportunities for drug-free housing.