‘We are the last space open at night for women fleeing anything. It’s heartbreaking,’ said Elizabeth Houston, a support worker at SisterSquare.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is facing a crisis as the number of emergency drop-in spaces for women experiencing homelessness, addiction and gender-based violence dwindles due to chronic underfunding and limited space.
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Among the most urgent concerns are the decreasing number of overnight spaces for women. One key facility, the WISH Drop-in Centre Society, which serves women involved in street-based sex work, has already closed its doors, and the future of another, SisterSquare, hangs in the balance.
Elizabeth Houston, a support worker at SisterSquare, a 24-hour drop-in space operated by Atira Women’s Resource Society, is concerned about where women in crisis will turn.
“We are the last space open at night for women fleeing anything,” said Houston, who works the graveyard shift.
Designated as a 24-hour safe consumption space for women, SisterSquare has also operated as a de facto drop-in centre due to the growing number of women in need. It also provides food, harm-reduction supplies and peer support for women in the Downtown Eastside.
Currently, only a few of the more than a dozen drop-in centres in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside provide safe drop-in spaces exclusively for women. A 2023 survey by Atira found that all 50 unhoused women interviewed reported feeling unsafe, with many sharing that they had experienced various forms of violence, including sexual assaults.
At any given time, Houston says between 28 and 35 women gather at SisterSquare from midnight until morning.
“Police drop off women to us every night. Some have just been beaten up, some are naked — all of them need a safe place to be,” Houston said. “Two weeks ago, we got a woman who had a bad date and woke up with some guy taking a blowtorch to her skin.”
On Thursday morning, Houston, on her last day at the job, had to ask women using the drop-in space to leave.
“It was heartbreaking. They were all lined up on the street corner outside.”
Atira Women’s Resource Society executive-director Hajar Masood confirmed Thursday that SisterSquare had to close and lay off staff because it is located on a municipal lot slated for redevelopment. The centre is now awaiting the city’s approval to open a new outdoor space.
Masood was unable to confirm when the new space will open or guarantee approval of the necessary permit from Vancouver Coastal Health and the city.
For now, SisterSquare, which Masood said relies mostly on annual funding from the local health authority, is moving indoors to an Atira-operated building that can accommodate around 16 individuals.
Its closure outdoors comes after the only other overnight drop-in centre for women in the Downtown Eastside, the WISH Drop-In Centre Society, shuttered earlier this month. WISH shut its doors for two months, citing funding constraints.
“The upcoming closure is terrible news for our community,” WISH spokesperson Lauren Burrows Backhouse said during the announcement. “But it is a temporary measure to support the organization’s financial sustainability until the end of our fiscal year.”
Before shuttering, WISH served approximately 9,000 meals a month, responded to 30 accidental overdoses, and operated with up to 110 volunteers. It was primarily funded through provincial government grants.
The shutdown of the 40-year-old society is part of a broader crisis in the Downtown Eastside, where emergency drop-in spaces for women are disappearing due to chronic underfunding.
On Thursday, PACE Society announced the temporary closure of its programming, including the daytime drop-in centre at 425 Carrall Street, which provided low-barrier support for sex workers and other marginalized individuals in the Downtown Eastside.
“While we expect to receive significant funds in April and beyond, the current shortfall means we have had to make the painful decision to temporarily suspend services and programming, as well as temporarily lay off most staff,” its statement said.
“We know how devastating this is for the community and our members who depend on PACE for so much. That is why the board and remaining staff are working extremely hard to get us back on our feet as soon as possible.”
Because of the closures, Alice Kendall, executive-director of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, says the non-profit’s two daytime drop-in centres are seeing an influx of individuals seeking refuge.
“Women are coming to us, but we are an unfunded drop-in centre. It’s devastating that it has reached a critical point like this.”
While the centre serves approximately 1,000 meals a day to women in the Downtown Eastside, Kendall said it relies on fundraising and donations to support its drop-in centre operations.
“We are already the place of last resort. What will happen to the women who will have nowhere else to go?”