Vancouver historian Lani Russwurm

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Historian finds déjà vu in ‘modern’ civics issues

The B.C. Court of Appeal’s landmark dismissal of the federal government’s attempt to close Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, marked an historical moment in the city’s history when the decision was announced last week (January 15).

But Vancouver historian Lani Russwurm knows that the city’s battles to implement harm-reduction strategies are nothing new. They date back to the 1950s — a fact that is often overlooked when politicians, policy-makers and media continue to talk about the Downtown Eastside’s drug problems as though they are specific to the present day.

Russwurm, who holds a master’s degree in history and blogs about Vancouver’s past at PastTenseVancouver.wordpress.com, notes in his blog that a narcotics committee was established by the Community Chest and Council — a precursor to United Way — in 1952. The committee, he says, recommended a comprehensive drug strategy including rehabilitation centres, educational initiatives, and even a proposal that some medical clinics provide “maintenance-level” doses of heroin to people addicted to the drug. “What’s regarded today as the novel philosophy of harm reduction was simple pragmatism in 1952,” Russwurm writes.

Unfortunately, he says, present-day discussions around controversial issues like drug policy become so politicized that it’s easy to forget what’s happened in the past.

Russwurm seems unfazed by this notion as construction workers put the finishing touches on the controversial new Woodward’s complex, where WE meets him at a recently opened coffee shop inside its new central plaza.

“It seems like the strategy to revitalize or gentrify the Downtown Eastside — what the City seems to want, or what developers seem to want — is to basically flood the area with middle-class people, where they bring consumer dollars, make businesses viable, and that sort of thing,” Russwurm says of the Woodward’s development. “Then you start to get these kind of new demands coming in: clean up the streets, get rid of panhandlers, get rid of poor people. So, drug addicts — where are they going to go?”

As a Downtown Eastside resident who works with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) in coordinating its Downtown Eastside Pedestrian Safety Project, Russwurm has seen his share of change in the neighbourhood since moving there in 2002. “The SFU school here [at Woodward’s], it’s going to bring a ton of students to the neighbourhood, so where are they going to live? I mean, even if you’re not homeless or on welfare or whatever, it’s hard to find an affordable place to live,” he says. “So, are they going to start moving into the SRO hotels? It’s quite likely.”

While history can — and should — inform our view of the present, Russwurm also emphasizes the importance of examining the impact of current actions that will inform the city’s future. “It seems to me the main issue facing Vision Vancouver or local city governance is not just homelessness, it’s affordability,” he says, adding that the City of Vancouver should focus more on stabilizing property values than encouraging projects that cause land prices to go up.

“People tend not to be critical about things that happen,” Russwurm continues, describing Vancouver’s view of the past as misguidedly parochial. “If you go to Toronto or Montreal, there’s more of a sense that history is more respected, in terms of heritage, that sort of thing. I would say Vancouver is lacking in that area. [Here], you build excitement by [building] something new... I think that really lends itself to that amnesia.”