TRUE COST OF CRACK

Arrested Hooker Claims She Needs Half A Million A Year To Support
Habit

HAMILTON -- Kelly Lynn Moore's eyes light up as she gives her first
smile since the drug cops burst through her door.

A cop mentions her meagre menagerie of toys perched on a tiny shelf of
her room in a Lottridge St. roominghouse.

Mickey, Minnie and Buzz are the only splashes of colour in the drab
8-by-10, main-floor room the 36-year-old alleged small-time dealer
moved into about a month ago.

"I collect toys, eh?" she says.

And then discussions return to the matter at hand.

Moore claims a voracious daily crack appetite, an ounce that costs her
about $1,300 a day.

"I'm a hooker," she says, explaining her means of paying the
bills.

How many men is that a day?

"Many," she says with a furtive look.

Det. Paul Henderson is surprised by her admission to a large habit,
because he's never seen her on a street corner.

But she says she walks the streets, not claiming any particular
spot.

The roominghouse has long been a source of problems for the
neighbourhood, which demanded action. It's raided on a regular basis
as old dealers and users move out and others replace them.

When a Project Crack Down raid team from the Break, Enter, Auto Theft,
and Robbery, the Drugs and Vice Units and the High Enforcement Action
Team arrived Tuesday night, Moore was with her boyfriend Emanual Brett
West, 40. She had put up a hand-written "Do not disturb" sign on her
front window. Everyone needs their private times.

Being stoned gives her the courage to insist that she and West be
allowed a kiss before being taken away in separate cruisers on charges
of possessing cocaine and marijuana.

The area "seems to attract a lot of the people involved in the drug
culture," HEAT Det.-Const. Rob Hansen says. "There's a lot of
complaints. They know, they see people going in and out at all times
of the day and night. There's a lot of families living there. How can
you be 100% confident in taking your kids out on the streets to play
when you encounter people like this?"

Moore says she didn't have much choice in her future; her childhood
was stolen from her.

She says she got turned on to drugs when she was 13, when a man
plunged a needle with speed in her arm as she slept.

He then took her out on the streets and "showed me how to" service
men, she says.

"It was there to here," Moore says. "I didn't choose the needles. I
chose crack. It got me off the needles."

"Good job," says Mimi Janzen, whose basement room is under Moore's to
the police.

She tells officers that she's been a victim of the crackheads who live
in the rooming house. She's posted signs demanding respect for her
property.

'NO RESPECT'

Janzen, 45, is now hopeful that she will get some sleep now. At least
for a little while.

"No sleep, people stomping over your head, no respect for anything.
They damage things, kick walls, kick machines and keep you awake even
though you're a working person," she says.

Her list continues: "Ask for food, ask for money, ask for beer,
everything. I'm not going to let them down, but they're going to get a
lecture: Get off that crack.

"I'm almost like a den mother to half of these crackheads," says
Janzen, who works at an auto parts maker. "Half of these crackheads
call me Ma, because I do have a little bit of respect for them,
because I do give them what I have to."

Janzen said she tries to keep the place clean so that her kid can
visit her, "but I can't have my kid come here anymore.

"Look, I haven't had any sleep for two f---in' weeks because of the
f---in' traffic," Janzen says.

She points to a well-worn rug on the floor of Moore's room, saying she
gave the arrested woman the carpet in hopes of dulling the banging.

"It didn't work," she says.

Statistically, Project Crack Down provided small numbers. In 11
warrants between March 19 and April 5, 38 people were arrested and
police recovered $3,700 in crack, marijuana and oxycontin, also known
on the streets as hillbilly heroin, just under $4,000 cash and 67
charges. More than $4,000 in stolen property was also recovered.

But Henderson believes the project, a street-level campaign driven by
neighbourhood complaints, worked.

Last weekend there weren't any robberies in Hamilton.

"I don't know if it's a coincidence -- I'm hoping not --but when you
lock up 38 people who are found-ins in crack houses and are addicted,
these are the people ... doing the commercial break-ins to get the
property to trade for crack. When they get locked up it's going to put
a small dent in the property crimes we deal with. We know it's not a
long-term effect, but the hope is that when we close down the crack
houses, it gets them out of the communities and gives the communities
a better quality of life."

At least for a little while.