RECLAIMING OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS

There's A New Ally, And New Resolve On City Streets

It's a small park, not much more than 20 paces by 20 paces if you walk
the edges.

The street it's located on is small as well; a butt-end, block-long
street with a peeler bar at one end and this little city park at the
other.

On this day, in the midst of the first winter storm of the season,
Insp. Alain Bernard stands in the centre of the park and says he's
heard stories of what it used to be like here.

How city work crews had to cut down trees, so people making drug deals
wouldn't have a place to hide. How prostitutes would walk the
20-pace-by-20-pace perimeter every morning, looking for work. How
mothers wouldn't let their kids play in the park until they had
completed a search for discarded used needles and condoms.

"Can you imagine living like that?" he says. "Can you imagine trying
to raise children and have to deal with that every day? No wonder
people are fed up."

Bernard is in charge of a new street crime unit set up by the Ottawa
Police. The undercover, specially trained cops hit the streets last
week, as part of a nine-month pilot project. As we continue talking,
he turns and walks towards his car, shouting over his shoulder: "Come
here. I want to show you something."

He rummages through a lawyer's briefcase in his backseat, then pulls
out a laminated map of Vanier. It's a specially drawn police map,
showing the locations of known crack houses.

"The addresses in white are crack houses we have recently shut down,"
he says. "The addresses in red are the ones we're currently
investigating.

This, by the way, is Emond Street."

I stare at where his finger is pointing, then let my gaze widen over
the map. The addresses for the crackhouses are shown in what resemble
caption balloons from the comics; the balloons either white or red.
There are so many coloured balloons it looks like the circus just
pulled into town.

I start counting the balloons. I finish when I reach
32.

I remember a time when police in Ottawa denied there was such a thing
as a crackhouse in our city. For a few years it was great fun, filing
stories about crackhouses and asking the police what gives, but those
days -- of fun and denial -- are behind us.

If there are 32 known crackhouses in Vanier, then you can extrapolate
from that, add in other areas of the city that are also dealing with a
crack cocaine problem -- Lowertown, Centretown, Hintonburg, Sandy
Hill, Mechanicsville,
whatever-you-call-that-area-off-Gladstone-Avenue-near-Bronson
- -- and you'll come up with a number that should frighten you.

It certainly frightened our new police chief when he took a ride last
summer through some of the hardest hit areas in Ottawa. Not long
afterwards, Police Chief Vern White approved funding for the new
street crime unit.

The mandate of the unit, according to Bernard, is simple -- "Clean up
our streets." The eight-officer unit is not targeting upper-echelon
drug dealers, but rather the street-corner pusher; the addict who
needs help; the street prostitute who never seems to move along.

The undercover officers took to the streets last Wednesday. After
years of denial -- the sad, civic-boostering kind of denial
accomplishing nothing -- it looks like we're finally getting serious.

The snow is now falling heavily on Emond St. I asked to meet Bernard
here because this street has become important to me.

Last year, in the wake of a murder in a crackhouse on the street, I
wrote a story that upset, I think, everyone down here (with the
possible exception of the people in the strip club).

I remember being in an angry mood when I wrote the story, wondering
how such an obvious crackhouse was not shutdown. Where were the
police? Where were the neighbours?

Funny thing was, the people who got upset with me were good people.
The anger of fools is never a problem, but when you annoy good,
hardworking people, it lingers.

I can't drive down Montreal Rd. anymore without taking a detour down
Emond St. I can't read a story about crack cocaine and not think about
the people on this street and wonder how they're faring.

A couple months ago, the first Neighbourhood Watch program in Vanier
was established. It was set up by people living on Emond St.

I have been told, and have seen for myself, things now are different
on this street. After getting angry, this community decided to fight
back.

"The people here have taken back the street," says
Bernard.

"We want to help other communities do the same. We don't have to put
up with this anymore."