Vancouver City Council outlines hiring 200 new police officers and nurses

Vancouver Police patrol vehicle in the Downtown Eastside. (Adam Melnyk/Shutterstock)

As promised during the civic election campaign, the ABC Vancouver party is pushing forward with hiring 200 additional frontline workers to tackle mental illness and addictions, including 100 more Vancouver Police Department (VPD) officers and 100 more mental health nurses.

On Tuesday, during their very first public meeting on establishing policy, City Council will consider ABC councillor Lisa Dominato’s motion to grow the existing partnership between VPD and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) with a larger labour force.

“The VPD collaboration with VCH and other community partners aims to reduce harm to both clients and the community, and to reduce a client’s involvement with the criminal justice system, law enforcement, and emergency health services, by providing a coordinated response,” reads the motion.

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The motion calls for formally advising both the VPD and VCH that funding will be made available by the City of Vancouver to hire additional police officers and mental health nurses, which will work together in responding to non-emergency calls through various initiatives and partnerships.

This includes expanding the existing Car 87/88 “Mental Health Cars” program of pairing a police officer with a mental health nurse in plainclothes and in an unmarked vehicle, as well as potentially the VPD Mental Health Unit.

The labour resources could also go towards the Assertive Community Treatment teams that handle individuals who have repeated and frequent use of the emergency medical system and “extensive contact” with police, and the Assertive Outreach Team for the most high-risk, high-needs individuals to help them transition from hospital or jail to longer-term community-based services.

While critics of policing point to the desire for additional investment in solely non-policing resources, such as healthcare and social workers, there have been immense challenges to scaling this model alone. Typically, for their personal safety reasons, healthcare and social workers will only attend to an incident in the Downtown Eastside if they are also accompanied by police. This is particularly the case for entering SROs, and supportive and social housing.

To initiate this plan, the motion also calls on City staff to start by directing $4.5 million in the City’s 2023 operating budget to begin the requisition process for hiring new police officers. This funding would be made available to the VPD as early as January 1, 2023.

Another $1.5 million from the municipal government in the 2023 operating budget would go to VCH for the purpose of beginning the process of hiring new nurses, also starting on January 1.

Both funding amounts for VPD and VCH are interim amounts, with City Council expected to provide additional final funding from the 2023 budget — to be determined at a later date. During the election campaign, ABC estimated the total cost would reach $20 million.

With a super-majority of eight of the 11 seats in City Council, including the mayor’s seat, the motion by Dominato is likely to pass.

ABC Vancouver ran on a platform of tackling crime, mental health, and homelessness, and providing support for Chinatown’s struggling businesses as its immediate priorities upon entering office.

Additionally, the ABC-led School Board also promised to bring back VPD school liaison officers to public schools.

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