In Vancouver, a recent study conducted by researchers at Simon Fraser University casts a critical spotlight on a pervasive yet under-examined public health issue afflicting the city’s most vulnerable populations. The subject of the investigation is the municipal government-led practice often referred to as “street sweeps,” whereby local authorities dismantle tent encampments inhabited by unstably housed individuals, many of whom also contend with substance use. These sweeps routinely involve the confiscation of personal belongings, a measure that this new research reveals as not only harmful but also a factor exacerbating health risks, including overdose and victimization.
Published in the internationally respected journal Public Health, this pioneering quantitative study represents the first large-scale attempt to statistically analyze the frequency and consequences of these confiscations in Vancouver. Data collected between 2021 and 2023 from 691 participants—individuals experiencing housing instability and using drugs—illuminate the stark reality behind the policy’s immediate and ripple effects. Astonishingly, nearly one in every four participants reported personal property seizures during the sweeping events, shedding light on how routine these occurrences have become and underlining their profound impact on an already marginalized community.
The confiscation of belongings during such operations destabilizes people’s tenuous hold on survival in multiple, interlocking ways. Essential items lost in the sweeps include medications crucial for managing health conditions and harm reduction supplies designed to mitigate the risk of overdose and infectious disease transmission. Kanna Hayashi, the study’s lead author and an associate health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University, emphasizes how these seizures transcend mere dispossession; they represent an erasure of the minimal safety net that vulnerable populations maintain. The confiscations force affected individuals into even more precarious living situations, intensify their exposure to systemic violence, and block pathways to critical health and social services.
The implications for public health are severe and multi-layered. The study identifies a statistically significant correlation between the loss of personal belongings and heightened risks of non-fatal overdose events, a direct nexus underscoring the biological and sociological interconnectedness of substance use crises and systemic displacement. The data also connect seizures to increased experiences of violent victimization, solidifying concerns that disrupting the limited stability of encampments exposes individuals to environments rife with physical danger and psychological trauma.
Furthermore, disruption caused by these sweeps influences access to essential services, creating a compound effect where individuals are not only suddenly stripped of their possessions but also rendered invisible or unreachable by social aid programs and healthcare providers. This effectively interrupts continuity of care and exacerbates barriers to survival, which some affected individuals may attempt to counteract through increased substance use, ironically setting the stage for further overdoses. This phenomenon reproduces a vicious cycle whereby punitive public policies inadvertently fuel the crises they purport to resolve.
Community organizations long critical of these practices—such as Our Streets, P.O.W.E.R., and Stop the Sweeps—now find their anecdotal concerns rigorously substantiated by empirical evidence. Dave Hamm, an active member and researcher associated with these groups, highlights how this study validates their ongoing advocacy. Despite numerous past efforts involving peer-reviewed reports, consultations, and public demonstrations, the persistence of street sweeps signals governmental intransigence and a failure to address the root causes of homelessness and drug-related harms. Hamm stresses the importance of community solidarity as a frontline response to systemic violence that official channels persistently neglect.
From a legal and human rights perspective, the confiscation of personal property raises profound constitutional concerns. Caitlin Shane, a staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society based in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, points to established legal precedents in British Columbia that recognize forced displacement as a violation of rights to life, liberty, and security under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The additional seizure of belongings exacerbates these infringements and often becomes not just a matter of legal principle but one with grave life-or-death consequences for a population pushed to the margins.
The study’s authors advocate for immediate and pragmatic harm reduction interventions to mitigate the damage wrought by existing municipal policies. Among these proposed measures are the creation of accessible, secure storage services for personal belongings of those living in outdoor environments. Such options would prevent outright loss during sweeps and empower individuals to maintain control over their possessions. Additionally, the researchers recommend standardized practices where documentation is provided to those whose belongings are removed, enabling retrieval and reducing the arbitrary and dehumanizing nature of enforcement actions.
However, the research emphasizes that these stopgap measures cannot substitute for systemic reform. The long-term resolution must involve an expansion of dignified, stable housing options coupled with enhanced harm reduction services. Hayashi underscores that street sweeps represent a costly, ineffective reaction to deeper socioeconomic inequities and public health crises. By merely displacing residents without offering alternatives, these policies simply “clean up the street” temporarily, leaving the underlying issues unaddressed and the affected populations at heightened risk.
As the toxic drug crisis continues to devastate communities across Vancouver and beyond, this study spotlights the urgent need to rethink how municipal authorities engage with unhoused individuals who use drugs. Punitive approaches serve only to deepen vulnerability rather than alleviate it. Instead, compassionate, evidence-based strategies that respect dignity and prioritize health outcomes offer the path forward. Policymakers are urged to heed this data, listen to community voices, and replace violent enforcement with meaningful supports that can disrupt cycles of harm.
In sum, the implications of this research extend well beyond Vancouver’s city limits, raising critical questions about how urban centers worldwide address visible homelessness and drug dependency amid overlapping public health emergencies. The quantifiable associations between confiscations, overdose risks, and systemic violence illuminated by this study challenge the efficacy and humanity of current municipal practices. More broadly, they compel a reexamination of policies that criminalize survival tactics rather than addressing structural failures that produce precarious housing and drug use in the first place.
By harnessing rigorous quantitative methods to validate lived experiences previously dismissed or ignored, this work augments an essential evidence base increasingly necessary to shift public discourse and policy. It reveals a public health crisis intertwined with legal inequalities and social marginalization, demanding innovative, integrated responses. Only through coordinated expansion of housing, harm reduction, and health services, combined with respectful, non-coercive outreach, can cities hope to forge paths toward genuine safety and stability for their most vulnerable residents amidst a toxic drug landscape that shows no signs of abating.
Subject of Research: Government-enforced confiscation of personal belongings among unstably housed people who use drugs in Vancouver, and its association with health risks and systemic violence
Article Title: “Street sweeps”: The municipal government-enforced confiscation of personal belongings among unstably housed people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada
News Publication Date: 3-Sep-2025
Web References:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2025.105885
Keywords: Human health, Public policy
