DOWNTOWN CLEAN-UP PLAN WAITING FOR FUNDS

Until someone coughs up some cash for Victoria's new downtown health action
plan, the joint project between the city and the Vancouver Island Health
Authority (VIHA)--meant to help homeless, addicted and mentally ill people
downtown--is just words on paper, punctuated by a few minor measures.

For now, it simply amounts to a few more cops on the streets, and six "new"
outreach workers that the VIHA secured funding for in December.

"What we have to do is find the resources [to make the plan work]," says
mayor Alan Lowe. "We are seeking funding right now."

The plan is in response to a group of downtown business owners, who showed
up at the council's January 9 meeting to say they are losing business
because the city is not working hard enough to keep drug users, traffickers
and sex trade workers off the streets.

Last week, Lowe, VIHA chief operating officer Marilyn Rook, and Victoria
police chief Paul Battershill announced 10 short and long-term commitments
to improve health and social services and "clean up" the downtown area.

Within six months, city and health authority representatives want to
establish full-time youth detox services and an adult "sobering" centre.
They also want to improve the way psychiatric emergencies are dealt with at
local hospitals, and train more volunteers to collect and dispose of used
syringes.

Other "short term actions" include VIHA's six outreach workers, and the
Victoria police department's new drug task force. Battershill says the task
force will seek out drug traffickers in the downtown area, as well as in
neighbourhoods like Fernwood, North Park and Burnside-Gorge. A maximum of
five officers will be working at any given time.

"They're going out at random times during the week, random days," he says.
For safety reasons, task force officers will work as a group instead of
splitting up to cover different areas.

Over the long term, Lowe says residents can expect to see capital planning
for a new psychiatric emergency building, increased affordable housing for
homeless people, and a new inner-city health coalition. The city and the
health authority have also promised to review mental health and addictions
services now available, including an investigation into whether a
supervised safe injection site is appropriate for Victoria.

It's not clear how the city and the health authority plan to pay for these
new support services, though Lowe says he plans to lobby for provincial and
federal dollars. And while Rook says the health authority hopes to set up
youth detox and adult sobering centres "as soon as possible," funding
dollars need to be "reallocated" first.

"We'd certainly be talking a million dollars ballpark [for the sobering
centre]," she said last week.

Wayne Poohachoff, a member of the North Park Neighbourhood Association
board of directors, has mixed feelings about the action plan. "I'd hoped to
hear the mayor speak more about working with community associations," he
says. "I've been meeting with VIHA for about a year, but some noise from
downtown merchants seems to get the attention of the city [more quickly]."

Poohachoff likes VIHA's commitment to helping mentally ill and addicted
people improve their situations, and hopes to see all levels of
government--including the city--contribute money to the various components
of the plan.

"Government cuts are developing a have and have-not society," he says. "You
see it downtown--addiction's a big part of it, poverty's a big part of it.
And frankly speaking, it's only going to get worse . . . most people know
someone who has been out on the street, or has died of an addiction. But we
don't seem to bring that to the forefront."