PACE Society and Survival Sex Work in Vancouver

PACE Society is a Vancouver organization that works with survival sex workers, a term for people whose street-based sex work is driven by pressing need rather than free choice. In an interview, its leaders described the group as run by, with and for sex workers, and as reliant on limited funding.

Services and programs

The society described outreach, education and support aimed at reducing harm and isolation. Support staff worked with people in crisis and with those pursuing longer goals, including rights advocacy, child-welfare cases, substance use and accompaniment to court and medical appointments.

Training formed another strand. One course taught members about organizational structure and policy development so that they could write the society's own internal policies. A long-term support program built life skills and encouraged members to mentor others. A violence prevention program paired emergency help with workshops on safety and self-defence. Outreach work of this kind typically hands out supplies and information.

Peer staffing and engagement

Outreach and a safe space for one-on-one counselling were the two main ways of reaching the community. The society said that staff with experience of sex work could offer non-judgmental support and gave members a sense that others understood. Open house events, including an annual meeting and a holiday party, supplied updates and a shared meal.

Why people enter survival sex work

The society rejected the older framing of street-based work as a choice made by morally corrupt women. It defined survival sex work by a steady inability to refuse dangerous circumstances, and it listed systemic contributors: poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental illness, childhood neglect or abuse, the lasting effects of colonial policy and residential schools on Indigenous people, and the criminalization of negotiating with clients. At the time, that last item referred to the Criminal Code provision on communicating for the purpose of prostitution, which has since been replaced by a different legal framework.

The Downtown Eastside

PACE objected to descriptions of the Downtown Eastside as merely dangerous. It noted that the area once served as a centre of theatres, shops and nightlife, then declined as the city's core moved west. Cheap hotels and bars were long part of it, and late in the twentieth century drug addiction became as widespread as alcoholism. The closing of a landmark department store deepened the slide, and enforcement against street prostitution in the West End during the 1980s pushed many sex workers into the neighbourhood.

The society also stressed a side that is often forgotten: residents spoke of belonging and of tolerance for people whom society tends to shun. It named housing and gentrification as the most pressing issues, noting that many people lived in run-down single-room hotels, and it described violence against members as a continuing concern.

Funding and harm reduction

PACE said its harm reduction stance had made funding difficult, because funders often favour groups that aim to rescue women. It relied mainly on government grants, smaller non-governmental grants, individual donors and fundraising by board and staff.

The model rests on anti-oppression principles and respect for self-determination. Instead of treating sex work as something to be escaped, it supports people where they are. Members pointed out that leaving is rarely as simple as finding a job or stopping drug use, since poverty, mental illness, child support and low self-esteem all complicate change.