NO HOME FOR NEEDLE EXCHANGE - WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

With an eviction pending on its current site and outraged neighbours
fighting a move to a new location, the health authority has little
choice but to switch to a mobile service

Cindy E. Harnett
Times Colonist

The Vancouver Island Health Authority's plan to provide Victoria drug
users with clean needles through a mobile service -- because it can't
find a new permanent location -- will only drive drug users to other
neighbourhoods and increase the problem, a prominent drug expert says.

"The bottom line of your problem -- in terms of health, social and
behavioural problems -- will in no way be smaller. ... You'll have
more problems than less," said Benedikt Fischer, at the University of
Victoria's Centre for Addiction Research B.C.

The health authority announced this week it has backed off its plan to
move the needle exchange to the St. John Ambulance building at 941
Pandora Ave. The exchange has been evicted from its Cormorant Street
location as of May 31. VIHA had faced outrage from parents at the
nearby private St. Andrew's Elementary School, who feared for their
children's safety and decried the lack of consultation.

But the decision means VIHA is left with few options other than to
make the exchange a mobile service.

"We have nowhere else to go," said VIHA president Howard
Waldner.

Indeed, VIHA really has just three choices: Stick with the Pandora
location, but consult with neighbours and develop a plan to make it
work (even though it's not obliged to do so as the building has the
appropriate zoning for a needle exchange); operate as a mobile service
only; or find an entirely new location and likely face similar
backlash from people in that area.

The needle exchange is funded by VIHA and operated by AIDS Vancouver
Island. It serves about 1,500 drug addicts, and has been increasingly
controversial because users loiter outside the Cormorant Street
location in large groups, leaving behind dirty syringes, blood and
human waste.

AIDS Vancouver Island said it was trying to clean up the problem, but
needed a bigger space -- hence, the new, larger Pandora location.

The site was chosen because it's next to the newly built Our Place,
which offers transitional housing and programs for the homeless. The
St. John building would house about 50 health-care and social-service
providers, as well as the needle exchange.

Originally, the city of Victoria was behind the idea. Mayor Alan Lowe
said the city was giving VIHA $100,000 toward the $2-million purchase
price of the St. John building -- but he changed his opinion this week
and "commended" VIHA's reversal.

"We must take pro-active steps to locate facilities with integrated
services in locations that work, but not to [be] reckless in our
choice of locations," Lowe wrote in an e-mail to the Times Colonist
while on vacation.

Yet even some of the drug users on Cormorant Street recognize it's
time for change.

"People here are starting to get the idea they are screwing things up
for their peers," said one man, noting that a number of addicts
already congregate in the Pandora Avenue location. "[It] would
probably make things cleaner," he said.

Katrina Jensen, executive director of AIDS Vancouver Island, hopes
that with further community consultation -- and improved plans from
her organization, the police and VIHA -- the Pandora Avenue location
can still be considered.

"We'd like to see if there's a way we can figure out to deliver those
services in a way that might actually improve the problems in the
neighbourhood," Jensen said. "If there's a way for the community to
give us a chance ... that's basically what we want to do."

She said AIDS Vancouver Island believes a fixed location, and not a
mobile service, is the answer, so users can have access to services.

Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall believes VIHA could still
locate the needle exchange on Pandora, with proper consultation. He
notes that with 22 needle exchanges in Canada since 1987, he's not
aware of a child ever being harmed, except by finding a discarded needle.