RED ZONE IS STILL NECESSARY

A book in which Nanaimo's red zone figures prominently won't exactly
show up the best features of this city.

Author Kim Goldberg releases her book Red Zone tonight. For three
years, Goldberg travelled around the so-called downtown red zone
meeting the drug addicted, the homeless, the mentally disturbed; often
I'm sure finding all three of those qualities in single people.

I have not yet read Red Zone, but I'm sure Goldberg has done her usual
competent work and anyone in Nanaimo ambitious enough to publish such
a work deserves our support.

The Daily News started reporting on the red zone about a year after it
was suggested by federal Crown prosecutor Brian Jones and implemented
through the courts and the RCMP in 2005. It's been an effective
strategy that has done much to turn around some serious problems that
were facing the downtown area.

The actual red zone is a well-defined area of the downtown within
which addicts under court order are separated from the location of
their drug dependency. Often they were charged with simple possession
of a controlled substance, sometimes possession for the purpose of
trafficking and at times other offences.

Life for such people, in any zone of any colour, is nothing less than
miserable. While the Nanaimo red zone was created in reaction to
growing fears among downtown merchants and residents that the
increasing drug trade and associated crime was spiralling out of
control, it has to be noted how the red zone strategy was accompanied
by efforts to assist the drug addicted, homeless and mentally disturbed.

It would seem that Goldberg's book takes an unflinching look at the
suffering that most of us are familiar with from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside, except that Goldberg wisely chose not to go to the extent of
actually sleeping on the streets. As a chronicle, it's a document that
needed to be written, as unsavoury as the topic may be.

The risk to Nanaimo's reputation from her book is minimal. What was
once called "Surrey by the sea" is no more. Anyone can come to the
downtown area and find a vibrant, thriving area where five years ago
addicts were smoking and trading crack on the street, sleeping in
doorways and leaving a wake of litter and violence.

That change is in no small part due to the red zone, and a moment
needs to be taken to acknowledge both Jones, who persisted with the
provision despite objections of defence lawyers, and Cpl. Dave
Laberge, head of the RCMP's downtown bicycle unit. Laberge and his
unit somehow did manage to do part police work and part social work as
they directed the enforcement of the strategy.

If someone wanted help, Laberge and other officers in the unit, on a
first-name basis with many inhabitants, were the first to point in the
direction of Vancouver Island Health Authority workers or other resources.

The city too played a significant part in the success of the red zone
strategy. The approach was not to simply to remove these people from
public spaces, but to offer them alternatives. Those who declined then
faced the process of just being removed and facing the court-ordered
red zone condition.

And regrettably Goldberg's work does reflect that still more needs to
be done. Too many people remain on the margins in the red zone, in
this city and there are too few resources to help them.

The red zone is still needed for the foreseeable future, but let's
hope the title of Goldberg's new book outlasts the real thing.