Close link between street sweeps, overdose and systemic harm: SFU study

(Press-News.org) Confiscating personal belongings during government-led dismantling of tent cities in Vancouver inflicts immediate harm and further destabilizes people already struggling to meet their basic needs, according to a new study from Simon Fraser University.

Published in the journal Public Health, the study found nearly one in four people experiencing homelessness reported having their personal belongings confiscated by city workers between 2021 and 2023. These confiscations—often part of street sweeps to remove tent cities—were significantly associated with non-fatal overdoses, violent victimization, and barriers to accessing essential services.

“Our data captures a harmful part of the street sweeps experience, which is confiscation of personal belongings,” says Kanna Hayashi, associate health sciences professor at SFU and St. Paul’s Hospital Chair in Substance Use Research. “These sweeps punish people for surviving in the only ways available to them. It’s a public health crisis that endangers lives amidst the ongoing toxic drug crisis.”

The first large-scale quantitative research in Vancouver to examine the frequency and impact of street sweeps, the study analyzed data from 691 participants who were unstably housed and used drugs.

Its findings validate long-standing concerns raised by community organizations such as Our Streets, P.O.W.E.R. and Stop the Sweeps.

“Our study provides the statistical evidence to back up what community groups have been saying all along: street sweeps are implicated in overdose risk and systemic violence,” says Hayashi.

Many lost essential items, including medications and harm reduction supplies. 

“If you’re using opioids and your valuable personal items are confiscated, you may be displaced into riskier environments, and your day-to-day survival will become more challenging. You may use more drugs to cope,” explains Hayashi. “That’s one direct pathway to overdose.” 

The study confirms the dangers of displacement and street sweeps that Our Streets and the broader community have been raising the alarm on for years, says Dave Hamm, Our Streets member and researcher-member with P.O.W.E.R. 

“We have tried it all: peer reviewed research, reports, a federal housing advocate, consultations and meetings, rallies and marches," Hamm says. “If the government won’t change its violent approach, we need people to keep showing up to support our neighbours, because in the end, we keep each other safe.” 

Seizing unhoused people’s personal belongings is a cruel and dangerous practice that raises serious legal concerns, adds Cailtin Shane, staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society, a non-profit legal advocacy organization in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. 

“Courts in B.C. have long agreed that displacing people who have nowhere else to go violates their life, liberty, and security rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” Shane says. “To then confiscate people’s personal belongings only compounds those violations and can be a matter of life or death for people who continue to be pushed to the margins.” 

The long-term solution to ending street sweeps is to expand dignified housing and harm reduction services, says Hayashi. In the meantime, the study suggests emergency responses that could reduce immediate harm, including creating accessible storage services for people living outdoors, and providing documentation when belongings are taken so people can retrieve them. 

“Street sweeps are a costly, ineffective response to inequitable policies,” says Hayashi. “The street may get cleaned up for one day, but it doesn't last because there is nowhere else for people to go. We need to fix the policies that created this crisis—not criminalize its victims.”

For a Plain Language summary of the study, click here.

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