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The Killing Fields
From: Fighting For Space
$0.56
By the late 1990s, drug overdoses, HIV/AIDS, and an outbreak of hepatitis C were collectively killing more than one person in the Downtown Eastside every single day. Desperate for attention from the authorities, Ann Livingston and Bud Osborn began organizing the community with a two-pronged approach. The first was to continue with the sort of street-level protests that had begun the previous year. These actions climaxed with a demonstration that came to be known as "the killing fields". At the same time, Livingston and Osborn began a slow process of trying to change the system from within. The pressure paid-off. In September, the health board declared a public health emergency.
Contributors
Travis Lupick
Travis Lupick is an award-winning journalist based in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He has more than a decade's experience working as a staff reporter for the Georgia Straight newspaper and has also written about drug addiction, harm reduction, and mental health for the Toronto Star, the Walrus, and Al Jazeera English, among other outlets. For his reporting on Canada's opioid crisis, Lupick received the Canadian Association of Journalists' Don McGillivray Award for best overall investigative report of 2016 and two 2017 Jack Webster awards for excellence in B.C. journalism. He has also worked as a journalist in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Malawi, Nepal, Bhutan, Peru, and Honduras.
