POVERTY ACTIVISTS MUST WORK WITH POLICE TO CLEAN UP DRUG GHETTO

It is hardly earth-shattering news that some of the seediest rooming
houses in the Downtown Eastside's are unfit for human habitation. But
Vancouver city police undercover officers are to be congratulated for
getting up close and personal with the sleaze in the city's notorious
drug ghetto -- and for trying to enforce the law.

These plucky cops spent 10 weeks in three of the hotels that rent out
rooms to people who are down on their luck. And, unsurprisingly, they
found them to be havens for drug-dealing, welfare fraud and other lawlessness.

The Vancouver Police Department has now recommended a series of
drug-trafficking and other charges be laid. And let's hope the
initiative it has shown is followed up by Crown prosecutors and city
licensing officials.

Let's also hope the police operation, called Project Haven, isn't
allowed to become a source of further hostility between poverty
"activists" and the VPD.

Indeed, it is rather sad that one group, the Anti-Poverty Committee,
has already begun the blame game. "The VPD are responsible for a
large part of homelessness because they do not take a proper approach
to the realities of the Downtown Eastside," it claims.

But let's be clear who the real villains are, namely those who profit
by exploiting society's most vulnerable and their need for any
shelter, however humble.

The activists should be working WITH the police to nail these rich
scumbags -- and make life better for all who live in this benighted area.