EVEN AT THE END OF THE ROAD, THERE'S SOMEONE WHO'LL HELP THOSE WITH
ADDICTIONS GET BACK ON THEIR FEET -- IF IT'S NOT TOO LATE

"So Pass the Jar and That Old Guitar, in This Hangdog Hotel
Room."
Gordon Lightfoot, 1974

Once upon a time, when the ballroom was the venue for all the posh
dances and black-tie fetes of decades past, the Greenwood Tower was
the "in" place.

Legend has it Pierre Trudeau once stayed here. And music icon Gordon Lightfoot.

Even Degrassi Junior High filmed an episode here.

But those days are long gone.

Today the Greenwood Tower is a hangdog motel, and a last grasp at a
hope that often never comes to pass, cut off primarily by alcoholism
and drug addictions, and the personal and collateral hell that they can create.

The old motel is therefore notorious in this town of 16,500 -- its
glittery past long forgotten, and its down-and-out landscape and
down-and-out residents now a persistent cause for social concern and
public anxiety.

By September's end, the Port Hope police had responded to 111 calls
to the Greenwood Tower Motel, the majority for domestic disturbances,
assaults, overdoses, drug dealing, public intoxication, thefts, and noise.

That, and three sudden deaths.

PRETTY AS COULD BE

The woman pictured here -- her face obscured -- was only 30 when she
was found in her motel room here back in April, lying on the floor
beside her bed, the party over.

She was as pretty as pretty could be, judging by an unaltered
picture, as well as another picture in the motel lobby.

But she was also a drug addict, an alcoholic and a mother of three,
all of whom are in the care of the Children's Aid Society.

Her youngest child is now only 8 months old, and was taken from her
arms virtually at the moment of birth.

Port Hope police are still awaiting a toxicology report from the
Centre of Forensic Sciences, but the presumption is already in on the
pretty young woman holding an empty whisky jar by the neck -- death
by accidental overdose.

In August, another woman was found dead in her motel bathtub, with
initial reports indicating she may have vomited so violently that her
heart went out of rhythm.

She was 28.

And then, back in September, about the same time a woman's failed
suicide attempt found her wandering the parking lot with her arms
slashed, a long-time resident of the motel, and a known boozer, was
also found dead in his room, likely from a heart attack. He was 59.

If there is a glue that keeps the Greenwood Tower Motel from
plummeting totally into the abyss, it is its manager, Dave (The
Pastor) Lovell, a 59-year-old former Salvation Army outreach worker
from Flowers Cove, Nfld.

Even the police admit to as much.

"He tries to help a lot of them out," Port Hope Const. Jim Dunn says.
"I know for a fact that there are a lot of decent people living
there. But times are tough."

Pastor Dave Lovell has worked the soup kitchens of Oshawa and Toronto
and, for the last four years, the Greenwood Tower has become his
unofficial ministry -- his pay being free lodgings in the main house
for him and his wife, Gail, and a few dollars to subsidize his small pension.

"I try to do the best I can, but it is a tough place for a guy with a
soft heart," he says. "I verbally kick people out of here every
minute, but it takes weeks for me to act on it.

"Where else are they going to go?"

Pastor Dave Lovell has a church service in the old ballroom every
Sunday and, on a Sunday recently past, 22 came to pray and hear the
gospel emanate from a sound system composed of an old karaoke machine
connected to a mike dangling from a stand jerry-built from a broken cane.

"Every person who lives here at the Tower is here because of bad
decisions made in their lives," he says. "This is it. This is the end
of the road, at least for some.

"They come for a lot of reasons. They come here because they cannot
afford first and last months rent, plus the deposit for hydro and the
deposit for a phone. They come here because they've been thrown out
of their last home and there is nowhere else to go.

"This is not to say there are not good people here," he says. "Some
of them go to work every day, but some 90% have problems with alcohol
and drugs.

"And, yes, some of them have died here -- at least six since I came
here four years ago."

The Greenwood Tower has changed owners over the years more often than
some people change socks.

And it has rarely been out of the news -- with past tenants having
successfully filed claims under the Tenant Protection Act because of
the 44-room motel's then appalling conditions -- for leaking roofs,
and for long periods of time with neither electricity or water
because the absentee owners either failed to upgrade the collapsing
infrastructure or failed to keep up with the mounting utility bills.

"The new owners are good people, though," says Lovell. "They're Hindu
Indian. From Toronto.

"And everything is all paid up."

Dave Lovell sits on the front stoop of the Greenwood Tower. A sign
offering monthly and weekly rooms is taped to the door. A room can be
rented for as little as $100 a week. It comes furnished, with cable
TV and a phone requires the use of a pre-paid card in order to be used.

He collects food vouchers from the Salvation Army and three local
churches and gives them to his residents.

"You can get back on your feet here," he says. "Or you can go the
other direction. Those are the only options left.

"It's up to you."