Grant: Operating Grant: College and Community Innovation Social Innovation Fund

Our research proposal, “Mapping the Surrey Drug Crisis,” aims to involve people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) of substance use as key participants. The project is prompted by the escalating toxic drug crisis in Surrey, BC, which has seen a consistent high rate of fatal overdoses. Despite the severity of the situation, research attention remains predominantly focused on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, leaving a significant gap in understanding the specific patterns and needs of Surrey. As a community-based research project, our proposed research involves a close research partnership with the Surrey Union of Drug Users. This partnership will provide crucial contextual and cultural data based on the lived experiences of our research team and study participants, addressing the multi-layered, nuanced problem in a way that incorporates the realities of impacted people. Despite Surrey’s large and growing population, there is currently only one supervised inhalation site, located an hour away by transit for the large, unhoused population in the Newton neighborhood. This gap in services disproportionately affects Surrey’s South Asian population, which has seen a significant increase in toxic drug deaths. The research aims to address the lack of specific research about the overdose crisis, harm reduction, and the regulation of people who use drugs in Surrey. The city’s unique demographics, design, services, and politics make much of the existing research conducted in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside inapplicable to Surrey’s context. Our project seeks to fill this gap and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the crisis.