Introducing the Downtown Eastside Help Guide

We’ve opened the DTES Help Guide to help people find food, shelter, health care and practical support in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It brings service contacts and access information together, with separate pages for different kinds of help.

The guide is for people seeking support themselves and for anyone helping a neighbour, friend or family member find a service. You can look for a particular organization, start with what you need, or narrow the listings by area.

For an emergency, call 911. The guide is a directory; DowntownEastside.org does not provide emergency response, operate the listed services, or reserve spaces.

Start With the Help You Need

The food and meals page brings together community meals, groceries and food programmes. The shelter page lists shelter contacts in and around the neighbourhood. Other sections cover showers and laundry, clothing, and community and family support.

You can also look for health and dental care, mental health and counselling, or substance-use support and harm reduction. These sections cover different kinds of assistance, so read the individual description to see whether a service fits what you are looking for.

Help with paperwork belongs here too. The guide includes legal help and identification support, alongside housing, income and employment services. A housing programme has a different application process from an emergency shelter. The listings distinguish between them rather than treating every housing address as somewhere to seek a bed tonight.

Check Access Before Making the Trip

An organization’s opening hours may differ from the hours of a particular programme. At the Evelyne Saller Centre, for example, showers and laundry have separate schedules. The guide’s showers and laundry page helps you look for such details before setting out.

Read who the service is for and whether it requires an appointment, registration, or referral. Some programmes serve particular age groups or communities. Some listings are outside the Downtown Eastside, and their area labels help you check the location.

A shelter listing does not confirm an available bed. For current shelter information, use the BC 211 shelter list linked from the guide and contact the service about access. The City of Vancouver’s shelter page, also linked there, provides winter-response information.

Hours, eligibility, and availability can change. Confirm the details that matter to your visit directly with the organization.

Keep a Copy You Can Use

The search accepts a service, organization or street name. You can combine it with the service-type and area filters to narrow the results. If a search returns nothing, try a shorter phrase or clear the filters and browse a category.

Each listing includes the information available for that service, such as its location, contact details and published hours. Resource and directions links appear where available. You can share a category page or copy an individual listing’s link. “Print matching services” prepares a shortlist for someone who would find a paper copy useful.

That makes the guide something to keep handy, whether you are looking up a contact for yourself or passing information to someone else. Check the date and details of any printed information again before relying on it later.

Send Us Corrections and Missing Services

The guide is compiled from publicly available information. It will be more useful when people who know the services can point out details that have changed or contacts we have missed.

Use “Report a change” beside a listing, or email contact@downtowneastside.org. Include the service name and the correction, with a link to the organization’s information if you have one. You can also suggest a missing service through the guide.