'People will die': Advocate slams Vancouver mayor for opposing an overdose prevention site
A renowned harm reduction and recovery advocate is slamming Vancouver’s mayor after he and City Council voted to try to block an overdose prevention site (OPS) downtown.
On May 5, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) announced the third location of the Thomus Donaghy OPS (TD OPS) at 900 Helmcken St., between Burrard and Hornby Streets — right across the street from one of Vancouver’s busiest hotels, the Sheraton Wall Centre. The lease begins on June 1, with services expected to open soon afterwards.
On the same day, Mayor Ken Sim announced that he’s introduced a motion to “use all tools available to the City” to block it.
“Vancouver will not support solutions that fail both those who are struggling and the communities around them,” said Sim in a release. “We have seen the disastrous impact when OPS sites are introduced without the right planning, oversight, and accountability.”
Guy Felicella, a well-known advocate who overcame homelessness, addiction, and gang involvement, said that Sim and Councillor Peter Meiszner “REALLY don’t care about the city’s most vulnerable.”
“For all the lip service these two have given in the past about how they realize it’s ‘important’ to prevent people from dying, they really let it fly in this unhinged rant about protecting businesses and developers,” he wrote on X.
Felicella also sent out a media release today, announcing that he would return the proclamation that Sim had awarded him nearly two years ago, which named May 29 as “Guy Felicella Day.”
He said that the proclamation was “purely performative” and that he “won’t be part of a disingenuous display of fake compassion and understanding.”
Felicella added that if the mayor and ABC councillors succeed in blocking the downtown OPS, “more people will die.”
“Mayor Sim and his ABC majority have demonstrated that they do not understand what it takes to recover from toxic illicit drugs, or the work required to save lives. That proclamation is not worth the paper it’s printed on. That’s why I’ll be returning it to City Hall.”
In response to Felicella’s post on X, Meiszner defended the council’s motion.
“I won’t apologize for standing up for my neighbours, residents, and businesses in downtown Vancouver who want a safe and healthy community — and who want to see those suffering with addictions get TREATMENT — not just another chaotic taxpayer-funded room to use illicit drugs,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, William Azaroff, who is running as OneCity Vancouver’s mayoral candidate, also sent out a statement on Wednesday criticizing Sim’s motion.
“The City’s job in this moment is pretty simple. When a health authority is doing hard, necessary work, you show up as a partner. You figure out what isn’t working. You help fix it. That’s the job,” he said.
He added that the concerns about the site design are real, but that the City should work through those concerns with VCH.
“You don’t arrive at the end of years of work with an urgent motion.”
Why is the OPS controversial?
The Helmcken location for the TD OPS, which is operated by the non-profit RainCity, would be its third location in the neighbourhood.
It first opened in 2021 at 1101 Seymour St., and closed in 2024 after the municipal government did not renew the lease due to controversy, including complaints of public disorder, strewn garbage and needles, crime and public safety issues, and sidewalk encampments.
Local residents impacted by the OPS sued VCH, the City, and Raincity Housing in 2023.
In 2025, the B.C. Ministry of Health established minimum service standards for all OPS facilities in the province, to ensure these facilities are good neighbours. The lawsuit was also addressed with an out-of-court settlement, where VCH agreed to follow the new provincial standards for operating OPS facilities, and the municipal government agreed to consult with area residents before opening new OPS locations.
The OPS’ second location was at 1060 Howe St., which opened in 2024 and closed earlier this year at the direction and discretion of the property owner.
In VCH’s statement announcing the new location on Helmcken Street, they said VCH and RainCity “are committed to implementing a robust site management plan for the new OPS location,” including screening, landscaping, litter management, access to outreach teams, and having an embedded recovery navigator.
Felicella pointed out that the area has the second-highest rate of overdose deaths in the city, and ranks among the top five in the province.
“I’ve said it many times: supervised consumption saved my life, and recovery gave me my life back. We need both, and it’s insulting to me and thousands of other people whose lives have been saved to say these sites have ‘failed,'” he said.
With files from Kenneth Chan