CITY HIT BY DRUG PLAGUE

Crack Explosion Overwhelming Downtown

It's a disturbing sight Gord Diamond sees too often when he takes his
dog for a walk around his downtown neighbourhood.

It's a young woman who's "freaked out," stumbling down the sidewalk,
scouring the streets for a fix of crack cocaine.

For Diamond, who's lived with his wife at their George St. condo for
six years, he sees the stumbling, strung-out woman and thinks of his
two daughters -- women in their mid-30s who've had the good fortune
of a loving and supportive home.

'DESTROYING THEMSELVES'

"These are women who are the same age who are destroying themselves
- -- it bothers me," said Diamond, the former director of transit
services at the City of Ottawa.

The operators of downtown homeless shelters say the furtive deals
behind dumpsters and in alleyways are hitting bargain basement
prices, leaving a trail of addicts.

A coalition of shelters, downtown residents and businesses say the
crack trade has reached crisis proportions.

"In the past months, it's just got to the breaking point where people
have said it's now at a level where it's totally intolerable," said
Perry Rowe, executive director of the Salvation Army Booth Centre
shelter on George St.

"Here in the Market, the proliferation of the drug trade has appeared
to have gone through the roof," said Rowe.

Ottawa has seen a "visible increase" over the last three years in the
crack trade, with homeless people getting hooked at startling rates,
said Sgt. Kal Ghaban.

"People who used to be alcoholics and passed out on the corner,
they're now looking for crack," he said.

Homeless people only need to panhandle for a few minutes to pick up
enough cash to score a few bread crumbs of crack.

"You've got basically a captive audience," says Rowe. "You've got
individuals that are beaten down and trodden down -- that's the kind
of people that the drug trade preys on."

For Rowe and shelter operators, the explosion of crack cocaine means
strung-out clients who put staff and other shelter clients in danger.

PRIVATE GUARDS

Last fall, the Salvation Army Booth Centre on George St. hired
private security guards to clear the drug dealers from their steps.

This June, members of the city's integrated drug and addictions
strategy initiative will deliver a report about the effects of the
city's harm reduction programs, which hand out free crack pipes and
needles to reduce the rates of HIV and hepatitis C among the city's drug users.

It's not as easy as a police crackdown on panhandling, says Rowe,
noting that there are long backlogs for addiction treatment.

"Individually, we can only do a piece of the puzzle," said Rowe.