CONFISCATED HELLS ANGELS DRUG MONEY TO HELP MONTREAL PROSTITUTES IN CRISIS

Confiscated Hells Angels drug money will be used to help Montreal
prostitutes escape the scourge of drugs, alcohol and abuse.

A four-month test project that started Wednesday will provide
around-the-clock professional assistance for street prostitutes found
to be in crisis.

"It's the bikers who are financing this," Montreal police Insp. Andre
Lemaire told a news conference.

Once the police or colleagues of the prostitute call for help, a
social worker will be immediately dispatched to the scene to determine
the appropriate resources required. They include detoxification,
temporary accommodation, counselling or follow-up care.

"The beauty of this program is to target a vulnerable group and find
an integrated, co-ordinated network to provide them with help," said
David Levine, president of the Montreal regional health board.

The project staff will be largely comprised of existing workers along
with a person hired to co-ordinate the involvement of participating
agencies. Montreal police currently have few options other than to
take a troubled prostitute to an emergency room, said Lemaire.

"It's not a legal problem, it's a health problem," he
said.

"With the start of this pilot project, our police are now able to
offer prostitutes a resource to cope and better respond to the
realities of the street."

More than $110,000 has been earmarked for the program from a sum of
about $4.1 million in money and goods seized in a 2001 police raid of
Hells Angels activities. The city received $824,000 earlier this year
to fund eight crime-prevention projects.

Police estimate there are 500 street prostitutes operating in Montreal
but they're not sure how many could benefit from such a crisis service.

A spokesman for a group that defends the rights of prostitutes said
there's nothing new in the project aside from beds being reserved in
two women's shelters and statistics being kept on the number of
prostitutes who are in crisis.

"For the rest, there's nothing really new because this emergency
social service has existed for eight years that is there 24 hours a
day, seven days per week," Michele Burque, general manager of Stella,
said in an interview with RDI, Radio-Canada's all-news channel.