By David P. Ball
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In Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Fiona York remembers the first, early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as closures swept across the neighbourhood.

While last March saw the rest of the city watch as upscale shopping districts shuttered, concerts and events cancelled one after the other, and thousands watching public health authorities daily briefings — the impacts on the Downtown Eastside were far more sweeping.

Basic problems such as sanitation, toilets, showers, and a place to sleep or spend one's day because paramount, York recalled. The loss of public bathroom spaces, drop-in centres that served as "living rooms" during the day or places for people to sleep safely was felt deeply. Even find a place to wash one's hands as instructed became a crisis.

The loss of such spaces, and the ban on guests sleeping or visiting many single-resident occupancy hotel rooms began to drive up numbers in the homeless tent city that had been established in Oppenheimer Park, and when the city won an injunction to clear that park's campers, they relocated to the port's lands next to CRAB Park, eventually being evicted again to Strathcona Park.

York reflected on what the neighbourhood learned over one year of the pandemic, amidst two ongoing public health emergencies — COVID-19 and the much-deadlier drug poisoning crisis — and three tent cities in a row.

She spoke to The Pulse on CFRO about the year past, as part of a weekly series going back to the show's original guests and what they've learned from a year that will never be forgotten.