CORMORANT STREET CRISIS

The Cormorant Street needle exchange has offered a test of the
community's ability to deal with drug-related street problems.

And the key players -- the city, province and the Vancouver Island
Health Authority -- have failed dismally.

In January, the crisis on Cormorant Street brought a united response.
Health officials, police, city council, the business community and
AIDS Vancouver Island all came together and agreed the location was
unsuitable and something had to be done. The neighbourhood was being
damaged and addicts were not receiving adequate support.

Ten months later, nothing. The people who live and work in the
neighbourhood have shown extraordinary patience, but have now launched
a lawsuit to force change. (For an insight into their struggles, see
this column.) The needle exchange's landlord has warned that it will
be evicted unless the problems are reduced in the next month.

The problem is not complex. The needle exchange needs a new location
and enough money to provide services that will keep users off the
streets. AIDS Vancouver Island has had no funding increase in 14
years, despite rising drug use and the proven value of needle
exchanges in reducing the transmission of diseases.

In fact, the Vancouver Island Health Authority has proposed cutting
funding for the service by 30 per cent.

What's needed is adequate funding from the health authority, which is
responsible both for addiction services and the public health measures
needed to control the spread of diseases like hepatitis and HIV/AIDS.
City help in securing an alternate site might also be required.

The failure to address this issue, instead dumping the continuing
chaos on a small group of addicts, property owners and residents, is
symptomatic.

VIHA should be fulfilling its responsibility. The city should be
demanding action -- publicly, loudly -- and taking its concerns to the
provincial government through cabinet ministers Murray Coell and Ida
Chong if the health authority will not respond.

Instead, nothing is done.

Cormorant Street has become a symbol of institutional failure.