SOLID FACES HURDLES IN LAUNCHING LOCAL DROP-IN

In the same week that the city and the Vancouver Island Health Authority
announced plans to build an adult sobering centre on Pembroke Street, the
co-ordinator of a new drop-in for intravenous drug users felt as if the
city's commitment to support for addicts had vanished.

Garth Perry, president of the Society of Living Intravenous Drug Users,
says since the group's drop-in centre at 2155 Dowler Place opened on June
4, he's faced resistance from irate neighbours and negative television news
coverage. It isn't exactly what he'd pictured.

In March, after Nettie Wild's documentary, FIX: The Story of an Addicted
City, received tremendous support from the council, the community and the
media during its Victoria run, Perry thought it made sense to start an
intravenous drug users group similar to the Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users. A street outreach worker and methadone user, Perry knew there was a
need for a user group in the city--and the public seemed sympathetic to the
problems VANDU members faced in Wild's film.

When SOLID first formed, the response was tremendous. Some start-up funding
was there, too--FIX audience members donated $5,100 to help out users in
the Victoria area ($571 of which the city borrowed to pay honorariums to
VANDU speakers during FIX's run, and has promised to return).

From the start, says Perry, things have been tough. When SOLID was having
weekly meetings in Fernwood, members tried to put up promotional posters,
only to have them torn down. When they tried to set up a drop-in centre on
Balmoral Avenue, they were foiled by city bylaws. Now, on Dowler, they face
concerns and criticism from residents who think the space is a safe
injection site--or just don't want the users in the neighbourhood.

"What it is, is it's a place where people can drop in and drink coffee,"
Perry says. "It keeps them off the street . . . it's a contact point to
engage drug users."

The weekly SOLID meetings happen at the drop-in now, and Perry says more
than 60 people attended last week. The centre is a place to nap, grab a
snack, or get off the streets for a while. It's also a place to get help.
Street nurses visit the centre a few times a week, says Perry, and if
people want to get off drugs, he is there to help them access the support
services they need. If they need clean rigs, they can get those there too.
SOLID members have also organized needle clean-ups from the drop-in centre,
and they've removed thousands of used rigs from city streets since they opened.

Perry explains that he isn't competing with the AIDS Vancouver Island
needle exchange and drop-in. Rather, he's providing a service for users
after the AVI centre closes at 11 pm. "We're not duplicating a service,
we're implementing a service that should have been here 10 years ago," he
says. "I'm frustrated that there's not more support."

Councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe would like to see SOLID strike a balance
between autonomy and coordination with other support services in the city.
She says the council had no idea the drop-in was opening on Dowler until it
was already up and running, and neighbours started calling city hall. "All
we can do is monitor [the centre] and look into it," says Thornton-Joe. "I
feel that they're really working hard to be a voice for users."

Ann Livingston, the VANDU project coordinator featured in FIX, says Perry's
problems mirror those she still faces with VANDU.

"VANDU was never embraced, I don't think," she says. "I think we were
ignored . . . VANDU still struggles after all this time, and I think we've
proved our legitimacy."

Livingston says that early photographs of the group all include protest
placards, because members had to struggle even to hold regular meetings.
"We had to file a human rights complaint against the Carnegie Community
Centre, run and owned by the city of Vancouver, before they would allow us
to have a meeting there."

She says she is in touch with Perry regularly, mostly to provide emotional
support. "It's hard to be working as hard as he does," she says. "It's
tough to have people say they will help, and then you find out they mean
some other kind of help and not real help."

So how can the council and the public help SOLID succeed?

"I think [Perry] needs some funding, and some hands-off, you know what I
mean?" says Livingston. "The kind of support that really helps. It's
challenging to operate with tons of volunteers and very little
infrastructure. The city should invite SOLID members to relevant committee
meetings . . . if there's a problem [in a community] why not involve the
people that you think are making the problem? Or they could help by
bringing over fresh-baked cookies, coffee or tea. There's no help that's
too humble, I don't think."