'boundless care and compassion': trey helten was on a mission to help others in vancouver's downtown eastside
"there is nothing to replace him." the sudden death of trey helten has shocked the downtown eastside, where he was widely known and loved.
4 minute read
trey helten is seen in a 2021 photo, standing in an alley beside an overdose prevention site in vancouver. helten died on tuesday.
arlen redekop
/
png
trey helten was open about the pain and chaos that characterized much of his earlier life. his motivation for sharing his story was simple: to help other people.
that impulse to help those in need was a constant through his later life. after spending years deeply addicted to drugs, homeless, and often incarcerated, helten turned things around and dedicated the rest of his years to improving the lives of others in his role at vancouver’s overdose prevention society, where he rescued countless people who overdosed on illicit substances and worked to get people off drugs.
his sudden death this week at age 42 has shocked the downtown eastside community where he was widely known and loved.
“it’s like an earthquake. everybody’s feeling it. i’m getting text messages from across canada and the united states, everywhere,” his friend sarah blyth said wednesday. “i don’t think the downtown eastside will be the same without him. … there is nothing to replace him.”
helten born in edmonton and grew up in the vancouver area.
a 2021 profile in the globe and mail detailed helten’s first 38 years, from when he started using alcohol and other drugs as an adolescent, to dropping out of high school and moving to the downtown eastside, drawn to the punk rock scene.
advertisement
eventually, he got into cocaine, heroin, meth, and other drugs, and overdosed several times. he supported his addiction by stealing and picked up several convictions. when he wasn’t in jail, he was often sleeping rough.
trey helten is pictured outside the overdose prevention society in vancouver’s downtown eastside on april 16, 2025.
dan fumano (png)
“a story that he always loves to tell is that he showed up at an na (narcotics anonymous) meeting pushing a shopping cart, because he’d been homeless for years, and at that point, it was sort of the end of the road,” helten’s girlfriend amanda rose said wednesday. that was early 2016 and marked a turning point in helten’s life, rose said, and narcotics anonymous “kept him alive for a long time.”
helten was chairing na meetings as recently as last week, when he invited this postmedia reporter to sit in, with the blessing of that day’s attendees, and observe.
after starting his recovery journey, helten had some relapses over the years. but those who knew him say he never stopped helping people. it sometimes took a toll on him.
not long after blyth started the overdose prevention society in 2016, helten started volunteering there. that same year, b.c.’s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency due to soaring rates of opioid-related overdoses. that emergency marked its ninth anniversary this month.
advertisement
helten walked into ops “as just a person who wanted to save lives,” blyth said, and he went from volunteer, to supervisor, to the organization’s general manager.
“i think he just felt like helping people was his mission. … he would go day and night, and you couldn’t stop him, even if you wanted to,” blyth said. “and helping people helped him.”
helten trained countless ops volunteers, and some politicians, on how to use life-saving naloxone kits. he frequently talked to the media. with blyth, he met with municipal and provincial government officials to push for change. he and fellow graffiti artist smokey d worked to build bridges between the downtown eastside and the neighbouring chinatown community. he gave people rides and let them stay at his house and visited them in the hospital and brought them meals or packs of smokes. he offered his carpentry and plumbing skills when needed. he was an artist who helped set up vancouver’s first legal street art wall. he took people for a cup of coffee at the ovaltine café when they were in crisis.
a lot of people looked up to him.
“he really had relationships everywhere and was important to people i couldn’t imagine,” said ops board chair chris ferguson, a close friend of helten’s. “the cops yesterday who were at the house with us picking up the body knew him, and were tearing up.”
advertisement
in recent months, ops has expanded its efforts to get people off drugs, including pioneering a new “recovery navigator” program that has helped get dozens of people into detox. the program was helten’s “brainchild,” ferguson said. “i can’t imagine the list of people who can attribute being alive right now to trey being by their side over the years. i know a lot personally, but i know the list is far longer than even i know.”
recently, helten had become passionate about pushing the city to open the empty lot at 159 east hastings, where the now-demolished balmoral hotel once stood, for use by the community, ferguson said.
“trey is the best person i’ve ever known,” ferguson said. “as soon as he’s done working to help people, he volunteers to help people.”
helten was found dead at his home on tuesday. the cause of death was not immediately known.
helten leaves behind a son.
he also leaves behind his cat chico and his dog zelda. a 2023 profile of zelda in megaphone magazine detailed how she was able to identify signs of an overdose and would alert “her person,” helten, when someone needed assistance.
helten also leaves behind an unborn child. rose, his girlfriend, is expecting in october, she said, right around helten’s birthday.
advertisement
“i am both terrified and eternally grateful,” rose said. “i want the people that loved him to know that parts of him are living on.”
trey helten (right) and girlfriend amanda rose (left) are pictured in vancouver in 2024.
he will be remembered for “boundless care and compassion for everybody,” rose said. “and boundless courage too. because it’s not easy to be trey. … it takes courage to just keep coming back and keep trying and keep doing what he does.”
“it would be impossible to count how many people he’s helped over the years,” she said. “he’s given so many people hope.”
share story
