USED SYRINGES LITTER INNER CITY PARK

Bridgeland Residents Fear For Children's Safety

Neighbours are frustrated but resigned to the fact that their small inner
city park, on the east side of the Edmonton Trail hill, is used by homeless
people to do drugs. Their big concern isn't the vagrants but the danger
posed by the drug paraphernalia, such as used syringes.

"It's getting rough all over this area," said Ray Rousch, 60, who has lived
in the same house since the early 1940s. "The drug use has gotten really
bad recently."

A few years ago, he volunteered to look after the area under the city's
adopt-a-park program.

He helped organize a cleanup that hauled out a truck-load of garbage. But
he's grown tired of the litter, needles and inaction from the city.

"I had a knife pulled on me one time," Rousch said.

"And my home's been broken into three times in the last 10 years. It makes
me angry. I'm most concerned about everybody's safety."

Responding to a call from a new resident Tuesday night, city firefighters
found 25 needles, liquor bottles, lighters and a blackened spoon likely
used to burn heroin. They also found evidence of camps, including jackets,
gloves, running shoes and socks. They even found a hospital gown.

As traffic roared by on Edmonton Trail, senior firefighter Barry Laidlaw
probed through the underbrush near 5th Avenue N.E.

"It's literally like looking for a needle in a haystack," he said, using a
pole to push back the grass and shrubs. "The syringes are easy to see, but
the needles are only half an inch long and might be half buried."

Wearing special protective gear, he said it's too easy to get stuck by a
needle that might be infected with Hepatitis C or HIV.

"There's lots of little homes here," he said. "There's also empty bottles
of booze . . . and old bags of glue."

Const. Kelly Karran said it isn't an isolated situation.

"This is happening everywhere, any place they can find," she said. "This is
well bushed and it's close to downtown."

Shrubs conceal the hillside from passing motorists and the condos across
the street. But the residents at the top of the hill, at the corner of 5th
Avenue and 4th Street, are aware of the problem.

"I'm very concerned," said Katherine Domic, mother of two preschoolers.
"Someone might get seriously hurt or infected."

Capris Rasmussen, a social worker who moved into the area two weeks ago,
discovered the drug paraphernalia Tuesday after going for a walk in the area.

"I feel for the person who has the addiction," she said.

"However, I'm more concerned about children stumbling across a needle. I've
seen kids playing in that area."