DRUG DROP-IN CENTRE PREPARES TO CLOSE DOORS

The centre's landlord objects to an increase in drug-related activity near
the Downtown Eastside facility

An experimental drop-in centre for drug users in the Downtown Eastside will
close this week after the landlord renting out the premises decided it was
attracting too much of a drug scene.

The small centre on Dunlevy Street, across from Oppenheimer Park, was
opened Aug. 15 to immediate opposition as the area's militant critics
claimed it was really a shooting gallery.

But those involved in the centre - Ann Livingston from the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users and Simon Fraser University doctoral student Gordon
Roe - said it was an experiment designed to show that drug users could be
more than just "clients" of government-run services, but could operate
services themselves.

Livingston paid the $588-a-month rent from her own staff salary at VANDU
and Roe chipped in three months rent from a $20,000 grant he received from
the Soros Foundation.

The facility, which at its peak was open almost 24 hours a day, became the
centre for VANDU's volunteer programs run by drug users: alley patrols and
Main and Hastings street corner programs.

Alley patrols went out at night exchanging needles and providing swabs and
sterile water for injection drug users in the alleys.

In the street-corner program, volunteer users sat at Main and Hastings in
the afternoon, exchanging needles and giving out information about VANDU.
While volunteers were acknowledged users, they had to refrain from using
drugs while they were doing volunteer work.

Landlord Udo Kenklies, who owns the New World Hotel and several storefronts
on that block, said he had no objection to those kinds of activities.

But, he said, the centre gradually attracted a drug scene right in front of it.

"Unfortunately, when you have drug users gathering in an area, everything
else follows."

Kenklies has owned property in the area for 30 years. He said he wasn't
trying to pretend there were no users or dealers in the neighbourhood
before, but that having the centre on Dunlevy pulled some of the dealers
over from Main and Hastings and, added to the dealers already operating in
Oppenheimer Park, created a new cluster of intense drug activity in front
of his property. He said people were starting to sleep on the sidewalk in
front of the centre.

Kenklies said he'd understood originally that the drop-in centre would
serve coffee and be a place for people to have a rest. Instead, the centre
began dispensing needles and sterile water, which made it much more of an
attraction.

He said he didn't believe, as critics claimed, that people were injecting
openly in the samll storefront room.

Regular visitors to the centre over the past six months have observed that
while there were the usual problems of any Downtown Eastside facility with
people trying to fix in the bathroom, it wasn't any more of an issue than
elsewhere.

Kenklies also said he didn't get any pressure from a critical group known
as the Community Alliance, to stop renting to Livingston.

But he said other business owners on his block did let him know they
weren't happy about the downward trend.

"They were the first to call me to thank me when I said I was evicting them"

Livingston said it's a shame the centre will have to close.

She insisted the centre, which will shut down Wednesday, did not attract
any new drug trade.

"We caused it to move across the street, maybe - we're terribly sorry about
that."

Livingston said the centre was uniquely valuable in the area for several
reasons. It gave the sex-trade workers nearby, who tend to work Cordova
and Powell Streets near the park, a safe place to go.

It was open to the hard-core addicts who had been banned from other
drop-ins and services in the area.

And it was a creative outlet for many users, who maintained a steady
rotation of alley patrols and street-corner volunteer work.

Livingston and Roe have said the city needs to develop services that treat
drug users as people capable of using their skills instead of just passive
victims who have to be helped or shooed away.

Livingston said that being able to run their own service was a powerful
tool for users.

"It's irrefutable that people go from being a street user to having a
transformative experience."

Livingston said she'll be looking for another space to rent. VANDU's main
office, at Cambie and Hastings, is still operating.

It is funded by the Vancouver/Richmond health board, with $120,000 a year
to support programs that improve drug users' health.