VANCOUVER—Vancouver’s only anti-harassment street patrol will soon return to keep the Granville entertainment district safe, after a lack of funding had organizers fearing they would have to call it quits.

On Tuesday morning, Vancouver City Council unanimously passed a motion to provide $25,000 to the Good Night Out Street Team to help cover operating expenses until the end of the year.

“We are extremely pleased with council’s decision today,” said Stacey Forrester, co-founder of Good Night Out, who said the money would give the team some “breathing room.”

The Good Night Out Street Team (GNO), which patrols the Granville entertainment district at night to keep partygoers safe, had been on hiatus after funding ran out in May. The team was hoping to find a third source of funding, as part of a collaboration in which they would contribute a third of their budget, with the City of Vancouver and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) making up the last third.

Unable to find a third source, GNO launched a Go Fund Me campaign to make up the $20,000 that would keep the team afloat for the next several months.

“We help a lot of people of all genders. It’s not just a team that supports the safety of women; it’s the whole public realm,” said Forrester. “Everything we do is about a commitment to ending sexual violence.”

But on Tuesday, city staff approved a recommendation for the city to put forward $25,000 to the GNO team, with $5,000 of that funding to go toward finding sustainable funding for the future. GNO would then use the funds it raised toward next year’s budget.

The street team was based on a similar campaign that began in the U.K., but Forrester doesn’t know if any other street teams in Canada are doing the same type of anti-harassment work.

According to its own data, the team has assisted, provided information to or checked in with more than 2,500 people between June 2018 and April 2019.

Much of the work of the team, clad in bright pink shirts, involves roving around the streets at night and keeping watch for people in need of assistance.

“We intervene on some light harassment, we help people who are over-intoxicated, passed out or separated from their friends, or they might be curled up in a corner or alley, and we help them find their friends, charge their phones and get them water,” she said. “We also help people get transportation out of downtown, so we wait with them for a cab.”

Forrester said GNO made the city’s interim funding, granted in 2018 and meant to last until January, stretch until May. The street team operates on a shoestring budget, with the majority of the money going toward honorariums for the volunteers. The rest goes toward water, juice, granola bars and harm-reduction supplies that are given to people in need.

Despite there being no previous street-harassment data on which to base their impact, Forrester said that a “marker of success” for the street team is knowing how busy it is on an average night. And, she said, it’s only getting busier.

The DVBIA sees the street team as a “value-added” investment, supporting a safe environment in which Vancouver businesses can operate, said president and CEO Charles Gauthier. The DVBIA had pledged $10,000 to GNO if it could match the funds.

He said that in working with Granville street bouncers and doormen, the GNO street team has developed “a type of intelligence network” that has helped share information quickly across the district, such as to alert bouncers to keep an eye on a vulnerable person.

“The street team has actually got between potential harassers and potential victims and can de-escalate a situation,” he said.

While police are also on the street at night, Gauthier said GNO team can intervene before police ever have to step in.

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“The presence of the team really helps to set a different tone,” he said.

Curtis Robinson is the chair of BarWatch, a program for nightlife establishments. He said the GNO team has been particularly useful in helping vulnerable people find transportation, which can be difficult at night when transit service is reduced.

“The transportation issue is a huge problem, for female patrons and servers alike. That is very important; they have done a very good job with that,” he said.

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