are concentrated in the DTES: In the closest hospital to the DTES, Saint Paul's, injection drug use leads to approximately 15% of admissions. The annual cost of ambulances responding to overdoses in Vancouver is $500,000, and the cost of police response to calls involving mental health problems is estimated to be $9 million per year. Costs per individual: For each untreated drug addict, the costs to society, including crime, judicial costs, and health care, are estimated to be at least $45,000 per year. The government-paid lifetime healthcare cost per HIV-infected injection drug user is estimated at $150,000. A 2008 study estimated that each homeless person in B.C. costs $55,000 per year in government-paid costs related to healthcare, corrections, and social services, whereas providing housing and support would cost $37,000 per year. Costs per individual vary widely: A 2016 study found that 107 chronic offenders in the DTES incur public service costs of $247,000 per person per year. Law enforcement In comparison to other Canadian cities, the VPD is generally considered to be progressive in dealing with drugs and sex work, emphasizing harm reduction over law enforcement. The VPD engages in the controversial practice known as "carding", or "street checks", in which police stop and question individuals whom they suspect of being involved in criminal or suspicious activity. In Vancouver, 15% of street checks are on Indigenous people who represent just 2% of the general population, and 5% of checks are on Black people who represent less than 1% of the population. Some civil rights groups believe the VPD's practices constitute racial profiling and result in excessive harassment and violence against Indigenous and Black residents. Since the 1980s, the VPD has generally ignored drug use in the DTES, as the sheer volume of users makes it unfeasible to arrest all of them. A large-scale police crackdown on DTES drug users in 2003 made no difference except to displace drug use to adjacent neighbourhoods. To encourage people to call for help when a drug user is overdosing, paramedics rather than police respond to 911 calls about overdose deaths, except in cases where public safety is at risk. Nationwide efforts to reduce the supply of drugs through law enforcement have had minimal impact on the easy availability or low prices of illicit drugs in Vancouver. By former mayor Mike Harcourt's estimate, police intercept only 2% of the drugs that enter the city. Vancouver