Frustrations rise over human waste on Vancouver streets, prompting return of ‘poop fairy’ program

People are seen in an alleyway in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Feb. 6, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

It is a true city-dweller skill to be capable of walking while simultaneously engaging in conversation, scanning the pavement ahead and being prepared, with the stealth of an assassin, to sidestep, dive, or change course at a mere moment’s notice.

Abandoned dog mess on urban streets is an issue common in cities across the world, but in Vancouver, the obstacle course that awaits unsuspecting pedestrians is unique in that there’s an extra layer of difficulty not typically found elsewhere.

As public defecation in the city reaches new heights, residents, business owners and Business Improvement Areas leaders are calling for action that goes beyond the routine clean-ups.

“The unfortunate thing is we’ve been talking about the feces issue here for quite a while now,” says Walley Wargolet, executive director of the Gastown Business Improvement Society.

Wargolet says he was forced to implement his own initiative, affectionately dubbed the “poop fairy program,” after other waste-collecting programs proved ineffective. Run by social enterprise Clean Start B.C., the project was initiated last year before lack of funding brought it to a halt a few months in.

In March it was reinstated, and volunteers had their work cut out for them from the get-go. In Gastown, the program saw 155 clean-ups throughout the month, while the Downtown Eastside had a total of 267.

Wargolet says the BIA is looking into analyzing the excrement to determine exactly how much is dog versus human – “in some cases, they think they might know…,” he says – but regardless of the source, “there is certainly a massive issue.”

By the end of this year, Wargolet says the BIA will have invested between $30,000 and $40,000 just to keep the problem at bay, and while the program has led to a marked difference in numbers, the unaffordable costs mean that its end might be in sight.

In 2021, the City of Vancouver introduced its Feces Removal Response Program to address the fouling minefields, with patrols and collections carried out on weekdays across Chinatown, Downtown, Strathcona, Gastown, and Hastings Crossing.

A spokesperson from the city says the program had seen 1,870 removals in the first two months of this year alone. In 2024, 327 calls regarding human waste were made, an average of six calls per week.

The city says those numbers are in decline, with the amount of feces removals totaling 19,900 in 2023 and 17,670 in 2024. Yet according to those who are witnessing the mess on Vancouver’s streets firsthand – like Wargolet, who regards the city’s program as “just too slow” – the stats provide little comfort.

Residents take action

“It’s definitely the case that there’s more and more,” says Ruishan Liu, who, after moving to Vancouver from China in 2020 and settling downtown, became so irked with the deposits ruining her neighbourhood that she decided to take the matter into her own hands.

“I felt like I just couldn‘t tolerate seeing them everywhere,” she says.

Liu ordered a pooper scooper online and got to work right away, but immediately felt “frustrated” when she realized the amount of waste surpassed even the large amount she had expected. Initially it took around two hours to clean a single block, and the waste she stumbled across was unlike anything she had witnessed on city streets before.

“Some of the feces are pretty large, and it makes me suspect who produces it,” she says.

“At first I thought it was all from dogs but then I started to wonder, is it something else?”

Liu joined the City of Vancouver’s ‘Adopt A Block’ program earlier this year, which requests volunteers to clean a block once a month, but has proved ineffective to a point she is now hitting the streets out of hours, tackling the problem with her partner between 20 and 30 times a month.

“To be honest, every time I finish my cleaning volunteer work, I feel like I’ve lost my faith in humanity,” she says.

What is the solution?

Landon Hoyt, executive director of the Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Association, has worked within the Downtown Eastside for the past ten years. The issue has “certainly gotten worse” in recent years and has skyrocketed particularly in the previous two years, he says.

“Vancouver is a bit unique in that we’ve been very reluctant to put washrooms in places like transit stations and high tourist areas, where there are a lot of people around,” he says.

“There’s one at Main and Hastings. There’s one at Victory Square Park. There’s one at Pigeon Park. But there hasn‘t been any additions to those in many, many years, despite a lot of advocacy to increase the number.”

Wargolet says he’s looking to add another public washroom in Gastown by the end of this year, but with summer fast approaching, and the increase in tourists and temperatures likely to only exacerbate the problem, he wishes it could come sooner.

“It isn‘t going to be pleasant,” he says, on the impending heat’s predicted effect on the ejections littering Vancouver streets.

While Gastown and the Downtown Eastside have become the butt of many ‘watch your step’ jokes as they become increasingly synonymous with the issue of human waste, Wargolet is quick to point out that the problem exists throughout Vancouver, and it’s spreading to places that typically have had rosier reputations.

“I live in Kitsilano, and I walk down Fourth Avenue and I see it. The West End, Downtown, Yaletown, Mount Pleasant, Strathcona, all of them are experiencing this,” he says.

A systemic problem

An increase in public washrooms is a step towards solving the problem but if the issue is to be truly tackled, it is its root that needs to be considered, says Wargolet. The public fouling, he adds, is vulgar evidence of a much wider problem permeating Vancouver.

“If folks are really in this dire of a strait that they’re having to use a street or an alley for this purpose, there probably are other things that they need help with,” he says.

“The washrooms are helpful, but we also need to ensure that we’re helping these people get the proper care and the services that they need to be taken care of.”

Hoyt points out that safe spaces for the homeless community are dwindling, with places like The Dugout, a drop-in centre which relocated from Gastown to cater to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, now being few and far between.

“The lack of funding for these spaces, the high rental costs, the high operating costs, have caused all of these places to close. Those were the places that people were able to go in, use the washroom, access resources, access health care, whatever it might be that they need,” he says.

Finding a coffee shop or store that is open and welcoming and the washroom can be accessed without feeling “harassed or stigmatized,” or an adequate shelter for resources, is becoming nearly impossible for the homeless community, he adds.

“We’re going to have to continue to spend money on these temporary band-aid solutions unless we actually get real and talk about addressing the upstream problems,” says Hoyt.

“If we were able to solve the drug and housing crisis today, we wouldn‘t be having this conversation.”