CRACK USE 'STAGGERING' AMONG HOMELESS

ANTHONY REINHART

TORONTO -- Half of the Toronto homeless people surveyed for a health
study said they had used crack cocaine regularly in the past year,
making the highly addictive drug more popular on the street than
marijuana and throwing new obstacles at those trying to get the city's
most marginalized residents off the streets.

"It's an important and pretty staggering finding," Erika Khandor, a
researcher for Street Health, said after the agency released a report
on homeless people's health last week. "We certainly knew that it was
a big issue in the homeless community, but we didn't realize the magnitude."

The survey of 368 homeless adults, conducted at downtown shelters and
meal programs between last November and February, found 49 per cent
had been regular crack users - meaning three times a week or more -
during the previous year.

Regular marijuana use was reported by 48 per cent, followed by cocaine
(30 per cent) and other drugs.

While substance abuse has long been associated with homelessness, the
stigma associated with crack - an intensely habit-forming drug that
can cause erratic behaviour - can make it difficult for users to get
treatment and isolates them further within the already-marginalized
homeless population, Ms. Khandor said.

Their numbers are growing because "crack is very readily available ...
and it's relatively more affordable than other drugs," she said.

Nowhere were these points more clear than at the intersection of Queen
and Bathurst Streets, one of a handful of downtown hotspots for drugs
and homelessness.

On one corner, street kids dismissed the 49-per-cent crack use figure
as inflated and denounced "crackheads" for giving panhandlers a bad
name. Across the street, inside The Meeting Place Adult Drop-In,
Bonnie talked about her 10 years as a user, her three days clean
(she'd just been in jail), and how, of the 15 people in the centre at
that moment, "at least 10 of us smoke crack.

"It's a very high number and it's getting higher," she said, adding
that 49 per cent might actually be low. "And the age is getting younger."

Bonnie, 38, said she met five teenagers new to the street earlier this
summer, none of whom had smoked crack before. She tried to steer them
away; crack, after all, is why she became homeless and lost custody of
her three children, why she occasionally gets arrested for
shoplifting, why she lands in hospital with pneumonia at the drop of a
hat.

"I lost them all," she said of the five teens. "There's no such thing
as recreational crack use."

Two months later, the five kids are still on the street, circling the
same well-worn track that Bonnie, tired of all her hard living, is
trying to summon the wherewithal to leave.

She got on it simply enough, on a day when her marijuana dealer came
by with a delivery. "On his way out, he dropped a big piece of
eight-ball" by accident, she said, referring to a chunk of crack worth
about $300. Bonnie and her boyfriend traded the chunk, with a
roommate, for some powdered cocaine, but wound up sharing the crack,
and soon enough they were hooked.

"We were living okay; we had our food, we had our roof," she said, and
of course, her three children. "Once it started, everything that had a
value we sold off. We lost our home and we broke up."

The shock of her descent and the loss of her mate scared her off crack
for four years, in which she restored a stable life in a North York
apartment with her children. "Then, one day, a friend of mine came
over and brought some crack with him, and the cycle started all over
again."

Two months later, she lost her apartment. She gave her daughter to the
girl's father, placed her two sons with Children's Aid, and joined the
ranks of the homeless.

"Not that I like it," she said of the situation with her children, now
in their mid-to-late teens, "but they're doing way better with them
than they would be doing with me."

With her, they would have a mother who wakes daily to a craving
stronger than the urge to eat, to shower, to do such basic chores as
laundry. All it takes to start is 10 bucks; a hit can be had for as
little as $5, but such a small amount is not worth the effort of a
seasoned user like Bonnie, who smokes 10 to 20 times a day.

"I wake up in the morning and go, '... where am I going to get my
stone today?' " she said, sitting in a small office inside the drop-in
centre in red sweatpants and a jacket despite the day's heat.

She need only go as far as the corner, panhandle for a while and she's
on her way. Sometimes, she shoplifts or steals from cars, but mostly,
she earns her crack in basic capitalist fashion - by buying larger
pieces, selling smaller pieces at a profit and keeping what's left for
herself.

"I've robbed people, I've stolen, I've lied, but I've never turned a
trick for dope," Bonnie said with a hint of pride. "I don't mean to
put down the working girls who work hard for their money," she
continued, revealing the social strata that exist even among crack
users, "but then there are crack whores who'll do anything for a hit."

Given the demands of survival amid drug addiction and homelessness,
there is perhaps little surprise within the 64 pages of the Street
Health Report, which chronicles numerous health conditions found
within the survey population.

The problem, in many cases, is a lack of available treatment,
especially among crack users.

Due to the effects of the drug on their behaviour, many also reported
being turned away from shelters and drop-in centres, Ms. Khandor said.

"There's a real lack of treatment available for people out there," she
said. "One in five of the people we talked to who were regular drug
users said that they had tried to get treatment and help for their
addictions in the past year and were unable to get help."

Research scientist Stephen Hwang, an inner-city health specialist at
St. Michael's Hospital, agreed.

"Crack-cocaine use is a huge problem in society in general and among
homeless people in Toronto," Dr. Hwang said. "There are 12-step
programs for people with alcoholism, but there's really almost nothing
for people with cocaine addiction, and it's something that I think is
a huge gap in our system right now."