24-HOUR CENTRE PLANNED TO GET ADDICTS OFF THE STREET

Hastings And Main To Be Redesigned To Remove The Open Drug
Scene

Vancouver's first 24-hour contact centre for drug addicts who want to
get off the street is being planned for the main floor of a hotel near
Main and Hastings streets.

That new centre in the Roosevelt Hotel, along with a redesign of the
Main and Hastings corner, is part of a plan to move the open drug
scene off the corner and begin providing a more coordinated set of
treatment services for addicts in the Downtown Eastside.

Along with those two projects, the Vancouver/Richmond health board has
abandoned its controversial plan to open a resource centre further
east on Powell Street. The resource centre proposal had generated
massive community opposition and a lawsuit against the city over procedure.

Instead, the board will now move an existing health clinic into that
building and will create a new "lifeskills centre" in the old health
clinic building on Cordova Street across from Oppenheimer Park.

As well, in a set of development applications going through the city
all at the same time, the board will close its current health clinic
in Gastown's Blood Alley and open a new one a little further east on
Pender Street.

These most recent developments in the contentious struggle over how to
improve the Downtown Eastside were welcomed by at least one set of
activists in the neighbourhood.

"I'm ecstatic that we're moving ahead," said Muggs Sigurgeirson, who
is vice-president of the Carnegie Centre Association and a longtime
resident and volunteer in the area. "We desperately need these programs."

She particularly liked the new contact centre in the Roosevelt, which
will give the city's street programmers -- a group of city employees
who provide services such as counselling to drug addicts on the street
- -- a base from which to work .

The centre will be a 24-hour first point of contact for people who
want to get off the street. It will give Vancouver police a place to
take people on drugs besides jail or the street. A city press release
said health workers, Carnegie Centre staff and police will co-operate
in running it.

But Sigurgeirson said she was concerned about two points in the new
plan.

The health board, which had advertised for non-profit groups to run
its resource centre, will now run the lifeskills centre with its own
staff.

Sigurgeirson said she thought that a centre like that would be better
run with a community-based non-profit group.

As well, she had questions about why the Gastown clinic was being
closed for no clear reason.

"It looks suspiciously like a gift to Gastown."

Some Gastown residents and business owners have been energetic
campaigners against any plan for new services for drug addicts in the
Downtown Eastside.

They have been part of a newly-formed group called the Community
Alliance, which has lobbied intensely to have the city do more law
enforcement in the area rather than provide more treatment services.

The Alliance has consistently expressed opposition to the Vancouver
Agreement -- a joint effort by the federal, provincial and city
governments to improve the area -- of which these four centres are a
part.