City of Vancouver nixes lease renewal for Seymour overdose prevention site

The City of Vancouver has decided not to renew the lease of a controversial supervised consumption site downtown following two years of neighbours’ complaints about public disorder and crime.

The move is being welcomed by some neighbourhood residents and defended by politicians with Vancouver’s majority ABC party. But critics say the decision could put lives at risk.

The city leases the ground-floor space in a building at the corner of Seymour and Helmcken streets to Vancouver Coastal Health for an overdose prevention site, or OPS, which is operated by the local non-profit RainCity Housing and Support Society.

The facility is meant to provide a safer environment for people to use drugs as an unregulated toxic supply continues to kill British Columbians at record rates. But since the site opened in 2021, it has been the subject of many complaints and at least two separate court challenges filed against the city by neighbours alleging increased crime and disorder.