Vancouver recovery centre named after late advocate opens in DTES | Daily Hive

Sarah Bythe/Supplied

A well-known organization in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) now has a new — and upgraded — home.

This week, the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) moved its resource recovery to 450 East Hastings, a site that has much better facilities, according to Sarah Blythe, the executive director and founder of OPS.

It is also now called The Ashtrey Resource Recovery Centre, in honour of Trey Helten, who worked for OPS for years and passed away over a year ago.

“Trey was part of the community … he got sober, and he was really helping people in the community on a day-to-day basis with everything you can imagine. He went above and beyond,” said Blythe.

“He always was like, ‘This is not a job, this is me helping my friends.’ And he would do it day and night. And everybody loved him; he was the best friend to everybody,” she added.

Helten started his work for the OPS as a peer on the frontlines, then worked his way up to supervisor, manager, and eventually general manager.

Really great day for folks in the DTES today. Im happy that The Ashtrey Resource RECOVERY Centre is now running services and will be fully operational starting July 6th. We moved our HUB services to a better location and our expanded services will include showers, laundry,… pic.twitter.com/00w5kcPnc2

— Sarah Blyth – Gerszak (@sarahblyth) June 24, 2026

The Ashtrey is a full-service day centre in Vancouver for people in the DTES. Unlike the previous location, it has showers and laundry facilities.

People can come in to access air conditioning, nutritious food, washrooms and showers, clothing, comfortable seating areas, Wi-Fi and technology access, outdoor lounge space, housing support, and recovery-focused programs.

“We can help people, so that they’re not just out in the street,” Blythe said. “Just being able to get people food and showers and clothing, and feeling a bit better than the situation that they’re in when they’re homeless.”

Blythe said that when Helten worked at OPS, they discussed how they could support DTES residents with recovery.

“If someone comes in looking for recovery, it’s really difficult to do much more than phone and try and get people into appointments, and people need a lot more support than that.”

Blythe said recovery is complicated to navigate, so they approached all levels of government and created the recovery navigator program, which will help people navigate the system. They have two working at the Ashtrey.

“[They] start calling, seeing where they can go, getting them from detox to treatment, getting appointments, making sure that if sometimes, if in the middle of the night they’re like, ‘I want to get out of here,’ they will help keep them, make sure their needs are being met inside.”

She added that recovery navigators are generally people from the community who “understand what it’s like to come off of drugs.”

The Ashtrey also offers daily space for Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings.

“Trey’s thing was always that, ‘we need a really low barrier frontline NA meeting,'” Blythe said.

Further, the facility has smart recovery meetings, detox centre outreach, and immediate access to a dedicated bed at Together We Can.

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