DTES group works to remember those killed by overdoses

A photo printed onto a piece of paperis pinned to the wall in the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) office. It's a smiling man with a short, grey beard. Next to the photo there's a handwritten note thatreads, "Passed on November3, 2016, Tex."

"He used to come quite often, and it was quite surprising to find out about him," said VANDU board member Hugh Lampkin. "He used to come to one of the groups down here."

"He used to make a lot of jokes," Lampkinsaid. "It was always a joke, or he'd try to make you laugh or smile and tell you one of his jokes. You know, people like that, you always remember."

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There are a few other similar photos scattered around the office bulletin boardin Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, all memorializingpeople who have recently died in the community most killed by drug overdoses.

Out in the common area, Lampkin points out a large poster with dozens of names and notes scrawled all over it. The photo, dated 2008, shows the thousand crosses VANDU members put in OppenheimerPark each with a name of someone who had died in the community.

Below that, there are a few more photos of people who have died and a couple of lists with more names.

The Downtown Eastside has been hit harder than any other area by the opioid overdose crisis that killed hundreds of people across the province in 2016. In one tragic December night alone, Vancouver police reported that nine people in the city died of overdoses most of those in the Downtown Eastside.

But those are just numbers.

VANDU's somewhat ad hoc collection of names and faces on its walls is the closest thing the Downtown Eastside community has to a running memorial forits lost members.

"You become sort of numb to the news, and you don't want to say, 'Well there's another statistic,' because that's a person and it was a friend or a father or daughter," said Lampkin.

According to Lampkin, it's not a complete effort to document and record everyone in the neighbourhood who is killed by drugs;it's largely just VANDU members and friends.

"Sometimes you know, you don't want to [keep track], because it's so constant. At one point, it's like it was daily for a couple weeks and then it was every other day and it becomes very depressing," he said.

"You keep hearing these names and all these people and it just takes its toll after awhile. You want to remember everybody and give them their proper respect, but it does affect you after a bit."

Ann Livingston, whoco-founded VANDU and nowco-chairs the street market in the neighbourhood, imagines a new project to make the memorializing effort more formal.

"It would be nice if there was somebody, you know art a good writer, you know somebody who's good at a Nancy Drew, who can figure out who people are and go find them and talk to the coroner. You know, get as much detail as they can and write a little obituary," said Livingston.

"Make sure there's a picture, because most people don't know who anybody is, because they have nicknames or street names, and we don't know how old they are."

She also remembers another project that never quite came to fruition a physical memorial that could have names added to it.

"We had gotten the funding and had the basic drawings for a memorial that was going to be an outdoor project," she said. "It was a really artistic and respectful thing, and it's sorely lacking."

According to Livingston, beyond the issue of funding, the challenge is tracking down reliable information about who has died.

She says news travels fast in the tight-knit community, but it often turns to rumour without any official information.

Livingston said authorities often won't release names to community members until the victims' families are notified, but many in the Downtown Eastside are estranged from their families.

"When their families are notified that they're dead ...the person is whisked away.We don't know anything about memorials."

Lampkinsaid there's some talk about dedicating more wall space at VANDU to putting a better memorial together. He said the problem isn't getting the news and figuring out who's dead.

"Keeping people alive, that's the big struggle."

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