FACING REALITY

"If we do our work well, we should be able to eliminate the open drug
market on the Downtown Eastside by the next election."

That ambitious statement came from Mayor Larry Campbell in his
inauguration speech in December 2002.

The "next election" Campbell was referring to is Nov. 19, the one
that will exclude his name on the ballot because he is retiring and
accepted a seat in the Senate.

To gauge whether Campbell and his city councillors did their "work
well," the Courier interviewed 30 people last month who live or work
in the Downtown Eastside.

Twenty-eight of the respondents were emphatic that the visible
selling and using of drugs continues in the Downtown Eastside.

In fact, the majority say the open drug market remains the same as it
did three years ago. Some claim it's worse and simply has been pushed
from one street to another.

"I see it every day in the alley outside my building," says Leeanne
Barr, a web project manager who lives in an apartment at Carrall and
Cordova streets. "There's lots of dealing going on. It never seems to
stop. So I'm not seeing much of a change."

Barr's words were echoed by drug users, recovering alcoholics, single
moms on welfare, information technology professionals and merchants
in Gastown, Chinatown and along Hastings.

Those who saw a slight decrease in open drug activity are operators
of businesses in the industrial area a few blocks east of Oppenheimer
Park, a popular hangout for addicts.

Though half of the respondents noticed increased police patrols in
the Downtown Eastside-and felt safer as a result-they noted the
presence is sporadic.

The dealers, meanwhile, continue to sell heroin, cocaine and other
drugs under the nose of a police department located less than a block
from Main and Hastings.

"We hardly saw any [police] before, so it's gotten better that way,"
says Albert Deslauriers, owner of Save-On Meats at 43 West Hastings.
"You could be on your way to the morgue down here, and they wouldn't
come. That's changed, but we'd like to see more."

Respondents also weighed in on the supervised injection site, the
federal government's heroin trials, the redevelopment of Woodward's
and their pick to replace Campbell as mayor.

Many offered solutions to the drug problem and how to revitalize an
area that has historically been known as the heart of the city.

The Courier did not interview police, politicians or health officials
for this story because their comments on the Downtown Eastside are
often heard in the media. As many residents pointed out, the
"ordinary" citizens are the ones who must live and work in an area
they say has long been ignored by city governments.

"We're fed up with this community being a dumping ground and nobody
caring about us down here," says Haedy Mason, an unemployed
43-year-old mother of three children who lives in a housing co-op on
East Pender in Chinatown. "Is it ever going to get better? The answer
for me is that it's not going to get better until there's political
will to make it better."

Fifteen women and 15 men were randomly picked to participate in the interviews.

The people were white, aboriginal, black, Indo-Canadian and Chinese.
The youngest was 26-year-old Talib Jiwani, co-owner of Shirtland
Drycleaning at 746 Powell St., and the eldest was 74-year-old
Deslauriers of Save-On Meats.

They talked in apartments, on the street, in caf,s and offices from
Victory Square to the Aboriginal Mother Centre on Dundas Street.

Eighteen of the respondents say they have never had a drug or alcohol
problem. The others are drug users, recovering addicts, recovering
alcoholics and occasional drinkers.

Twenty were victims of crime, having been beaten, robbed or had their
store or home broken into. Worst hit were drug users and 59-year-old
Robert Desmoulin, who lives in aboriginal housing on West Pender.

In the past two months, he was assaulted and robbed twice, he says
during an interview from his bed where he lays in noticeable pain.
The first attack occurred outside his building when two men and a
woman jumped him.

Desmoulin, who walks with a cane, had just returned from an early
evening dinner at a McDonald's restaurant in nearby International Village.

His attackers kicked him in the head and back and stole his wallet
and keys. He was treated in hospital for bruises and cuts.

A month ago, he was attacked again in his building's fence-protected
courtyard. All he remembers is a couple of guys jumping over the
fence and beating him. His bruised ribs make it difficult for him to talk.

"I found him the next day lying in a bush, moaning and groaning,"
says Koreann Tremblay, the building's manager, who listened to
Desmoulin tell his story to the Courier. "Robert's safety is my
number one concern right now. He's afraid to go out any more. Friends
now come to visit him."

Heroin user Greg Liang, who lives in Chinatown, says he was badly
beaten twice in eight years. He told his story while waiting for a
meeting to begin at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
office on Hastings.

"Stupid shit, you know-over dope," says Liang, who is a regular
client of Insite, the city's supervised injection site at 139 East Hastings.

Liang was one of 20 respondents to support Insite, which opened in
September 2003. He believes the facility, which gets an average of
600 visits a day, has curbed the spread of disease, decreased street
nuisance and reduced overdose deaths.

Up the street from the VANDU office, the owner of the Chinatown
Supermarket on Keefer Street says he's still undecided about the
effectiveness of the injection site.

"When it opened, I didn't support it 100 per cent," says Ken Lau,
while standing at the back of his store. "It's hard to say if it's
working because there are still addicts on the street, but I don't
see as many in the alleys here."

Fellow merchant Edward Gutierrez, co-owner of Artistic Art and Craft
Ltd. on East Pender, doesn't mince words about his position on the
injection site.

"It's a bloody flop and a waste of money," he says from behind his
desk. "It is supposed to lessen drug users from shooting up in the
streets when the public and kids are around, but it's not doing that."

Gutierrez, however, supports the federal government's experiment to
give government-prescribed heroin to a monitored group of heroin addicts.

The North American Opiate Medication Initiatives (NAOMI) aims to
provide 70 addicts with heroin and 88 with heroin and methadone to
study which group manages its addiction better.

Similar experiments tried in Switzerland and the Netherlands suggest
prescription heroin can be an effective treatment and help some addicts.

Gutierrez was one of 18 respondents to support the trials, with six
opposed, two undecided and four not familiar enough with the project
to comment.

"At least [the government] is trying to do something to get people
off drugs instead of allowing them to do it," Gutierrez says.

Another supporter was Janice Abbott, who lives at Columbia and
Alexander streets and is the executive director of Atira Women's
Resource Society on East Cordova.

"Folks who use heroin-if it's monitored like legal drugs-can live
relatively normal lives," Abbott says. "We need to eliminate peoples'
judgment to heroin use and [the trials] will hopefully reduce that."

Abbott doesn't believe law enforcement is the answer to disrupting
the open drug market. She points to the need to reduce poverty first.

"I don't see too many women down here who grew up in healthy, happy
homes. Women we work with have experienced a level of acute violence
and live in poverty. These are the issues that have to be addressed."

The prevalence of crime and drugs in the Downtown Eastside has
Gastown resident Colleen Dix wanting to move.

The 35-year-old Dix, a website manager for Telus, doesn't support the
injection site or the heroin trials and says the money could be
better spent on treatment for addicts.

She moved into her 500-square-foot loft on Alexander Street 19 months
ago. She paid $188,000 for it, and bought it partly for nostalgic reasons.

"My grandmother used to take me to $1.49 days [at Woodward's], and we
would love coming down here," she says over coffee at Starbucks on
Water Street. "But in the last two months, it's become more apparent
how gross it can be down here. I'm sort of tired of all the junkies
and having to be on alert."

Her car was broken into in her building's secure parking lot, and her
bike was stolen from a locker in her building. The increase in
nightclubs, which have been the scene of shootings, violence and
late-night noise, is another reason she's looking elsewhere.

"It's been an adventure, but it's time to move on," says Dix, who
wants to start a family and move to a townhouse in Fairview Slopes or
the West Side.

The Downtown Eastside is the start of a new beginning for Danielle
Jackson, a 40-year-old former drug user and dealer. She opened Sacred
Space, a "holistic and metaphysical boutique" Saturday at 27 West Pender.

The high-end 2,300-square-foot store features books, jewelry, home
decor and a coffee bar and offers yoga classes and writing groups.
Jackson, who grew up in the Downtown Eastside, is a certified hypnotherapist.

Her transformation from teenage dealer to business owner is
remarkable. She left the drug trade 25 years ago after a friend was
shot and killed, she says.

"That really scared me and I could no longer handle that life," she
says, noting 12-step programs, counselling and friends helped her
embark on a healthier road.

Jackson has since worked for non-profits and was a gaming manager on
cruise ships for almost 10 years.

Last year, she settled with her husband in an apartment near Main and Terminal.

To open her store, she enrolled in business courses through a
Downtown Eastside skills program, developed a business plan and
secured financing through a bank. Sacred Space is located on the
ground floor of the same building where Desmoulin was beaten twice.

"I don't only see what other people see-the drugs and stuff-and
besides, what's going on down here is happening in other places, too.
Just look at the West End."

Jackson was easily the most optimistic of the people interviewed by
the Courier. Her outlook is of a street smart woman who believes a
better community can be built if more people take pride in it.

She supports the injection site, the heroin trials and hopes the
Woodward's redevelopment will inspire more people to open businesses
in the Downtown Eastside.

Jackson was one of 24 respondents to support the $280 million
Woodward's project, which will include condo units, a daycare, Simon
Fraser University and 200 units of social housing.

"What people say down here is 200 units of housing [at Woodward's]
isn't enough, or the injection site isn't enough. But I'm glad that
something is being done."

Adds Jackson: "A lot of people try to run from their history, from
where they grew up, but this is the community I love, and I want to
stay here and make it work."

A few blocks away, Julia Manitius also has high hopes for the
revitalization of the Downtown Eastside. Last December, she opened
Urbanity, a high-end women's clothing store on Abbott Street in Gastown.

A Montreal native, who moved to Gastown after 28 years in Denmark,
the 60-year-old was attracted to the historic community's buildings
and mix of artistic people.

"I thought I could be part of creating something here, and help build
the revitalization," says Manitius, sitting on a couch in her store.
"I'm not going to move because of the problems in the district, and I
would very much like my business to work out here."

Even so, the newcomer to the city is flabbergasted that politicians,
police and city agencies have let the Downtown Eastside slide into
such a deplorable state.

Ironically, last month, Conde Nast Traveler magazine in its readers'
choice awards named Vancouver "Best City in the Americas" this year.

"I just can't believe that a city that's supposed to be one of the
best places in the world... that people managing the city could allow
this to happen."

After the Nov. 19 city election, eliminating the open drug market in
the Downtown Eastside will no longer be Larry Campbell's problem.

When he announced in the summer that he was retiring, Campbell
admitted "nothing was perfect in the Downtown Eastside, yet it's well
on its way to becoming a more livable place."

The mayor pointed to the opening of the injection site and the
redevelopment of Woodward's as evidence. He did not address why the
open drug market continues.

"So everything that I wanted to do has been completed or is well in
progress," he told a packed news conference outside his office at city hall.

Still, there's the deplorable conditions in the hotels in the
Downtown Eastside, the lack of treatment centres and mental health
facilities, dilapidated abandoned buildings, no 24-hour women's
centre, limited social housing and spent syringes in playgrounds.

The list doesn't end there.

Deslauriers of Save-On Meats wants to know why his property taxes
doubled to $23,000 in the last year, yet the city refuses to enforce
its untidy premises bylaw against landlords of unsightly buildings
that line the block.

"I had to go after the city to get the building across the street
torn down because people were squatting in there, lighting fires and
all kinds of stuff," he says.

Sabrina Driuna, a legal advocate for low-income residents, wants to
know why the city allows human feces to pile up in the alleys while
the call for public toilets has gone unanswered.

Recovering drug addict Scott Robertson, who lives in a house across
the street from drug-infested Oppenheimer Park, wants to know why
so-called refugees continue to sell drugs on the street.

All 30 people were asked how they would solve the drug problem. The
question was almost always followed by a long pause before an answer came.

Managing the drug problem might be a better way to put the question,
some say, because it will never be solved.

Some called for legalization of drugs to stop the "predatory
dealers," others called for more injection sites, stiffer penalties
for dealers and widespread government-prescribed heroin.

The common answer was simple in thought, but complex in
reality-reduce poverty. Addiction and poverty are intertwined, they
say. Decrease one to reduce the other.

Though politicians say tackling poverty and addiction involves the
cooperation of three levels of government-as the injection site and
the recently renovated Silver-Avalon Hotel show-those interviewed say
leadership has to come first from the mayor and council.

On the same day Campbell announced his retirement, he endorsed his
friend Jim Green to run for mayor. He's running under the Vision
Vancouver banner against Sam Sullivan of the NPA.

Green, a Strathcona resident, is a longtime champion of the Downtown
Eastside and even has a housing project named after him on Alexander Street.

Green wants more police and supports opening a second injection site.
He has been behind the Woodward's project for years, looking to it as
a beacon in the revitalization of the Downtown Eastside.

Sullivan, a Yaletown resident, supports a wider circulation of
government-prescribed heroin to keep addicts from committing crimes
to feed their habit.

The 12-year city councillor has given money to a drug addict and a
prostitute to buy drugs and claims to be the first politician in
Canada to ask for harm reduction.

Downtown Eastsiders say they've heard all kinds of promises from
politicians, only to be disappointed later. As Robertson watches two
men in Oppenheimer Park huddle under an umbrella to light a crack
pipe, he has this to say: "There's too much tolerance to the bullshit
that goes on down here. How far are we willing to let this
neighbourhood go to hell?"

The rhetoric of the political campaigns continues for two weeks. The
majority of respondents to the Courier are still undecided on their
choice for mayor.

Whether it be Green or Sullivan, one of them will make an
inauguration speech in December. And you can bet a lot more than 30
people in the Downtown Eastside will be listening, if not smirking at
what comes out of the new mayor's mouth.