ADDICTS COME FROM GOOD HOMES

Re: Missing The Revival, July 13.

I speak to the contentious topic of locating halfway houses in
residential areas with the confidence of three credentials. For the
past four months my husband and I have lived at the corner of Richmond
and Sherbourne streets. We fit the demographic of the "gentrified." We
are "late Boomers," university educated, successful. We also have a
daughter who has -- despite the benefit of parents anxious to extend
the benefits of their success -- chosen a street life with all that
that entails.

Let me tell you what life is like in our corner of the world. I leave
my condo every morning at about 6 a.m. to walk my German Shepherd. I
walk again in the evening on the same beat. We walk up Sherbourne to
Adelaide and go east to what I call the "Drug Park," which is the
triangle of grass between Adelaide and Richmond. I have a lot of
experience with drugs. As an observer and as a parent of a drug
abuser. My antenna is still good. I see the street people going into
the bushes, I see the prostitutes, I also see the young executives
pulling up in their late model cars, with cellphones calling out the
dealers. In four months, I have only once seen the police bike patrols
go into the drug park to check on the scene. I know I am safe because
of my dog, but every day I re-evaluate that confidence. We are lucky,
as we aren't staying.

However, thanks to our daughter -- who has been battling addiction
since the age of 14 -- I understand the fear of halfway houses for
addicts and released offenders. No one would choose to have one in
their neighbourhood. But as in our case, they are not "others," they
are not from broken homes. They are from our homes in good areas, from
so-called good families. As a society, we have to stop putting the
undesirables in ghettoes, whether in neighbourhoods or segregated
classrooms and learn to heal our wounded.

Kathleen Gowans,

Toronto