CASH INJECTION NEEDED

Mile Zero

If you ask people living in the 800-block of Cormorant Street to
describe how well they've been sleeping lately, many will answer with
exasperated sighs or tight-lipped grimaces of frustration.

The area is one of downtown Victoria's acknowledged "hot spots" of
illegal drug activity and it's also home to the needle exchange
operated by AIDS Vancouver Island. Despite the best efforts of AVI
officials, city employees, neighbourhood associations and the police,
drug-related activities and unwelcome nighttime noise extends for
several blocks in every direction.

The uneasy coexistence of drug users and nearby residents and
businesses was one of the subjects discussed Monday night at a public
meeting at City Hall. The goal was to establish a "good neighbour
agreement" between AVI and other "stakeholders" in the area, including
the Victoria Police Department, the North Park Neighbourhood
Association, the City of Victoria and people who live and work in the
area. The agreement was modelled on a policy already in place at the
Our Place day shelter for homeless people.

One fact that often gets lost in the ongoing debate about the needle
exchange is that AVI provides many support services for people living
with HIV/AIDS but who are not necessarily drug users. AVI officials
see the needle exchange as just one crucial community resource to help
reduce the spread of disease due to addicts using shared needles.

The AVI office moved from Johnson Street to Cormorant Street in 2001,
followed six months later by the needle exchange that was originally
established in 1989. Ever since, critics have questioned whether such
a facility should be located in a predominantly residential area. AVI
has been searching for an alternative site in a more "appropriate"
part of town for months, but a funding cut proposed by the Vancouver
Island Health Authority doesn't leave many options.

AVI communications co-ordinator Andrea Langlois says VIHA wants to
reduce its annual contribution to AVI's three South Island facilities
by 37.5 per cent as of March 2008. Last year, VIHA provided $1,248,496
(or 67 per cent) of AVI's $1,856,591 annual budget, with the rest of
the money coming from grants, donations and fundraising efforts. The
two groups are still negotiating, but if the cuts are approved, AVI
would see over $468,000 disappear.

The Victoria branch of AVI distributed about 830,000 new needles to
1,560 "active clients" through its Street Outreach Services in
2005-06. It claims a return rate of 97.3 per cent, although some of
those needles may have come from other sources (e.g. street nurses or
other public health agencies).

AVI officials say they have simply outgrown the Cormorant Street site
and need to find a larger location. In the meantime, they are striving
to minimize problems associated with the needle exchange, including
drug users exhibiting anti-social behaviour and sleeping on sidewalks
and private property.

Through the new good neighbour agreement, participants have pledged to
"improve the safety and security of merchants, residents, workers and
other citizens frequenting this neighbourhood," improve the area's
physical appearance and address the behaviour of clients using the
needle exchange, which operates seven days per week (primarily in the
late afternoon and evening).

Those are all worthwhile objectives, but - as several members of the
public pointed out Monday night - VIHA and the provincial government
need to do much more to address the core problem of drug abuse and the
horrific physical, emotional and mental damage it causes.

It is as much a public health issue as it is a criminal matter, but
even if people are sympathetic to the plight of intravenous drug
users, they don't want to see discarded drug paraphernalia in their
neighbourhoods.

AVI provides important support services for people living with
HIV/AIDS, but the Cormorant Street facility is inadequate to properly
handle the growing number of intravenous drug users who frequent the
needle exchange. Staff members are struggling just to keep up. AVI
volunteers and city employees do what they can to keep their
neighbourhood free of discarded needles, but there's a limit to what
they can do. Drug paraphernalia still litters nearby streets, even
though city clean-up crews do a daily "sweep" of the area and will
respond 24/7 to any complaint about needles on public property.

The idea of a safe-injection site in Greater Victoria is still a
political hot potato. One might argue that such an approach would seem
to officially sanction illegal drug use, but that's not how most
advocates see the situation. They recognize the reality that addicts
will shoot up wherever and whenever they need to do so.

A safe injection site would at least provide a relatively safe, clean
and controlled environment for users to do what they're going to do
anyway. One of the benefits would be that staff could provide users
with information on available treatment options, education programs
and referrals to emergency social services.

It doesn't really matter where an enlarged and properly funded AVI
facility is situated. Whether it stays in its present location or ends
up elsewhere, there will inevitably be problems and people will
undoubtedly complain about them. However, to allow AVI to continue
operating as it does now is untenable. It deserves more funding, not
less, and it's high time that VIHA and the provincial government woke
up and took action.