By Philip O'Connor
VANCOUVER, CANADA, July 6 (Reuters) - The World Cup has brought glitz and glamour to Vancouver, but as the western Canadian city seeks to show its best side to the world, some locals say it has also led to early-morning raids and what they describe as more aggressive policing of people experiencing homelessness and drug problems.
On the morning of the recent last-32 game between Switzerland and Algeria, people sleeping in tents and on benches in Oppenheimer Park, not far from BC
Place stadium, said they were awoken early by city staff in a sweep that moved much faster than usual.
"We were just sitting there over here with one tarp there, and all of a sudden, four (park) ranger pickups, big white trucks, showed up with a big city loader truck, and within 10 minutes, they had cops right behind them," Harley "Two Dogs" Ransom told Reuters during a visit to the park.
"They started sweeping the park and kicking everyone out, waking them up, kicking them out, taking their stuff."
Vancouver has long-standing problems with drug abuse and homelessness, most apparent in the streets, parks and back alleys around the junction of Hastings and Main Streets in the city's Downtown Eastside.
Crack cocaine, methamphetamines and fentanyl are rife. Along Hastings, people stand bent over or lie on the pavement, unconscious from a mix of fentanyl and sedatives.
For some, sweeps and clearances are a daily fear that has increased as the city has been under the World Cup spotlight.
"There's more confiscations of people's monies, even if they don't have drugs on them, more 'move along, move along', but not saying where to move along to," said Samona Marsh, who lives in the area and works with various community and local academic organisations, as well as being a drug user herself.
"A lot more street sweeps, which means they come along with the city workers and throw all your stuff in the garbage."
The FIFA World Cup 2026 Vancouver Host Committee and the City of Vancouver told Reuters in a written response to questions that by-laws allow "overnight sheltering in parks by people experiencing homelessness, but tents and other structures must be taken down and belongings packed up during the day so that the park remains accessible to everyone."
"As part of regular daily operations, Park Rangers visit Oppenheimer Park every morning to remind individuals who sheltered overnight that they must take down their tents or structures and pack up their belongings ... this work is routine and is not influenced by FIFA World Cup 2026 matches at BC Place Vancouver, including on July 2," the statement said.
INCREASED POLICING
Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Megan Lui told Reuters that policing had increased citywide for the World Cup.
"Our deployments have been larger, but we've been working with the city to work with the vulnerable populations," she said. "We're not taking anything unless it's an illegal weapon or a substance, but we are just helping the city of Vancouver clean the streets."
The Downtown Eastside had a designated team of officers assigned to the area, she added.
In their response to Reuters, the local organising committee and the city said that staff engaging with people experiencing homelessness did so with an approach "grounded in trauma-informed and person-centred practices", but that does not always translate for the residents of the Downtown Eastside.
"It's a very stressful, stressful moment when they take your drugs and put it on the ground and stomp on it, and same with the paraphernalia," a drug user who goes by the name of Aero said.
PERSONAL BELONGINGS
The confiscation of personal belongings is a big issue for many of those frequenting the Downtown Eastside, and many do not understand their rights or the process involved in recovering them.
"When it comes to street sweeps on the sidewalk, most things are thrown directly into the garbage, with some exceptions," said Tyson Singh, a researcher at Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences and outreach social worker who has worked in the Downtown Eastside for several years.
"When it comes to park ranger-led displacement within parks things are, in theory, taken to a couple of places in a city truck. However, it's a byzantine process, particularly if you're homeless, and few people end up with their stuff back."
On Tuesday, Vancouver hosts its final game of the tournament when Switzerland take on Colombia in the last 16. Harley "Two Dogs" Ransom is hoping that the final whistle will mark a change in how the Downtown Eastside is policed.
"I've never seen so many (cops) in my life. We went on outreach the other night to a hydration station, and we counted about eight clusters - the biggest one was 29 cops in one section," he said, shaking his head.
Samona Marsh is sceptical that there will be any improvement for homeless people and drug users once the tournament ends, but said she won't be leaving her close-knit community any time soon.
"I'm going to die down here, and everyone's like, 'oh, that's such a shame', but is it really? I could go to (upmarket Vancouver neighbourhood) Kitsilano and die and be like, oh, another junkie dead, right? If I die down here, it's like, oh, Samona's died," she said.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; additonal reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare and Mohammed Benmansour; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
