TEAM TACKLES CRIME HEAD-ON

A group born from last month's community meeting about drug use and the sex
trade on the North Shore is looking for a made-in-Kamloops solution.

"It's not going to be one thing that cures it all; it's going to be a
multitude of things," said Trevor Jensen, head of the Kamloops Community
Action Team that's one of the partners in the newly formed committee.

"There might be things we try that might not work. And we'll try something
else."

The North Shore Community Working Committee (NSCWC) consists of service
providers and community groups and represents a trimmed-down version of the
interested parties involved in the July 21 community meeting. They met for
the first time on Thursday.

"The bigger picture is dealing with the issue itself. Not just shuffling it
around, but trying to come up with some solutions," said NSCWC chair Ray
Jolicoeur.

The committee will involve neighbourhood residents and will work to develop
action plans to deal with the diverse - and sometimes nebulous - issues
that beset the North Shore.

Residents often see issues - and potential solutions - "outside the box,"
and clear of the structures that often cage institutional workers,
Jolicoeur said.

The most refreshing thing that arose out of the first community meeting, he
said, was the compassion that residents had for sex trade workers.

People realize that street workers are human beings and that prostitution
cannot be punished out of them.

"They don't want it in their neighbourhoods, but they also know that in
order to solve a problem they have to be part of the solution. And I think
they are willing to do that."

"They don't think that someone's going to come in and solve the problem for
them," Jensen said. "It's their neighbourhood, it's their issues."

In addition to dealing with the sex and drug issues of the North Shore, one
of the possible outcomes from the committee's work is the formation of
neighbourhood associations. The associations would work to represent the
neighbourhood issues with the city.

Another more "optimistic" outcome is a made-in-Kamloops model that can be
implemented in different parts of the city should the problems resurface.