TAXPAYERS FINANCED DRUG HAVEN

The B.C. government unwittingly provided $22,000 for a de facto "shooting
gallery" for drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside that police say became a
haven for traffickers.

The Back Alley, which opened in November 1995, was operated for about a
year by the now-defunct Innovative Empowerment Society. It received $15,000
from the Vancouver Foundation and $8,000 from the Central City Mission
Foundation.

The facility was supposed to have been run as a drop-in centre to help
addicts rehabilitate their lives. However, soon after it opened, addicts
began shooting up inside.

Estimates vary as to how long the facility operated as a place to fix, with
some people saying two months and others saying up to a year.

Manager Ann Livingston said addicts were using it as a place to meet and
fix within weeks of it opening at 356 Powell Street. At one point, there
were even posters throughout the Downtown Eastside, advertising the space
as a "safe-fixing site."

As many as 200 addicts a night would inject heroin and cocaine in a small,
squalid room at the back of a former store equipped with a TV, clean
needles and a phone for calling 911 in the event of an overdose.

Livingston said the society allowed addicts to run The Back Alley and it
was only when it became "an embarrassment to the government" that funding
was cut.

Inspector Gary Greer of the Vancouver police said the department initially
did not act against blatant drug use at The Back Alley and that officers
would often send addicts on the street to the centre.

But, he said, police finally cracked down after learning, from various
sources, that people were being coerced into using drugs and that blatant
trafficking was going on there.

"The neighbourhood was an absolute disaster. People found needles with
blood. People were freaking out on drugs. There were assaults and people
shooting up in doorways."

The Empowerment Society was a group of addicts supported by the Downtown
Eastside Youth Activities Society (DEYAS). The addicts were unable to
directly access provincial funds because their society lacked the necessary
legal standing, so DEYAS -- a reputable, non-profit agency with an annual
budget of $2.8 million -- was used as a conduit for accessing grants.

"The community felt let down -- that we'd been led down the garden path,"
said John Turvey, of DEYAS, referring to the drug use that eventually
dominated the facility's activities.

Turvey said the programs they were supposed to be running at The Back Alley
never materialized. Wherever addicts congregate, he said, there will be
drug activity, but it was never meant to overshadow the project's goals.

After the group had received several months of government funding,
injection cubicles appeared and that -- in addition to the group's
bookkeeping irregularities -- spurred DEYAS to withdraw funding.

Although Turvey signed the contract for the grant, he said what happened at
The Back Alley was the responsibility of those who ran the Empowerment
Society.

On Wednesday, a government spokesperson said Victoria stopped funding in
October 1996, after widespread community criticism of what was originally
intended to be a drop-in centre providing counselling, job training and
medical assistance -- a proposal the government initially supported because
it had the backing of DEYAS.

Bud Osborn, of the Vancouver/Richmond health board and a former board
member of DEYAS, said funding continued after everyone knew it was not a
drop-in centre. But in spite of the problems precipitated by The Back
Alley, a health board panel led by Osborn is pursuing a plan to open four
such injection sites in the Downtown Eastside.

"[The Back Alley] was a bit squalid," Osborn, a former addict, admitted.
"But it saved lives."

And with 272 deaths in B.C. so far this year from overdoses of heroin or
cocaine -- a 30-per-cent increase over the same period last year -- he says
an experiment in safe fixing sites that could improve on The Back Alley
model is desperately needed.

On Friday, Osborn will be in Ottawa to lobby officials from the federal
health minister's office for support of the health board's plan to open
four similar injection sites in the Downtown Eastside.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski