ACHIEVING A CIVIL SOCIETY HINGES ON HUMANE TREATMENT FOR ITS LOST SOULS

Public disorder is not new in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, nor are
attempts to eliminate it. Successive mayors, from Philip Owen to
Larry Campbell, and now Sam Sullivan, have all called attention to
the problem, and have offered various solutions.

This is something we need to keep in mind in assessing the value of
Sullivan's latest initiative, Project Civil Society. According to the
project's official document, Sullivan wants to achieve a 50-per-cent
reduction in homelessness, the open drug market, aggressive
pandhandling and public nuisance and annoyance complaints by 2010.

These are ambitious and worthy goals, but goals alone are not enough.
The real issue centres on how these goals will be achieved, and to
that end, Project Civil Society includes a 10-point plan.

The plan includes a $1-million crackdown on nuisance and public
annoyance, possibly by hiring new bylaw officers and prosecutors, and
the establishment of a project civil city implementation office,
commissioner, leadership council and implementation team.

The emphasis on implementation is important since many grandiose
plans fail simply because insufficient attention is paid to
translating plans into action. Perhaps one of the most important
aspects of implementation concerns the plan to boost police presence
on the street, which should at least help to reduce some of the
aggressive panhandling that has become such a blight on our city.

The project also calls for an immediate benchmark analysis of
aggressive panhandling, open drug sales and use, and homelessness.
Although this might seem redundant, since we have plenty of data on
the incidence of homelessness, for example, it will allow the
leadership council and the implementation team to assess progress and
determine what's working and what isn't.

Bar owners will also be advised of a 60-day countdown toward
significant improvement in public order or council might reduce bar
hours to match other Greater Vancouver Regional District
jurisdictions. Representatives of the bar industry have balked at
this, claiming that it will just transfer the problems that occur at
3 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Yet bar owners have also stated that many of the late-night problems
outside Vancouver bars occur because patrons from other areas of the
GVRD come to the downtown core for last call. If this is the problem
- -- as opposed to bars serving patrons past the point of intoxication
- -- then harmonizing bar hours would likely eliminate it.

All of these plans, therefore, appear positive. But conspicuous by
its absence in the 10-point plan is any explicit mention of
homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness, the three problems
that contribute to public disorder more than anything else.

Of course, city council can't tackle these problems by itself, since
it will need the cooperation and support of the provincial and
federal governments. And though not included explicitly in the
10-point plan, project civil city does discuss these problems at length.

The project document notes the lack of affordable housing, and talks
about the need to build on current outreach strategies to link people
to appropriate services and supports. It also discusses an initiative
to fast-track the development of social housing.

As far as mental illness and addiction are concerned, the document
details innovative programs such as the supervised injection facility
and the North American opiate medication initiative, which have
helped to stabilize addicts. It also mentions various governments'
attempts to build a comprehensive system for addiction and mental illness.

Fortunately, the project civil society leadership council will
include key provincial and federal ministers, which means there will
be an opportunity for cooperation and coordination among the three
levels of government.

Such coordination and cooperation is imperative if we're ever to get
a handle on public disorder. The 10-point plan is a good start, but
if it's a permanent reduction in public disorder we're after, then
our efforts to address homelessness, addiction and mental illness
must be front and centre.