DOWNTOWN SHELTER IN 'WAR ZONE'

Recovering drug addicts who have lived on the streets say downtown
Abbotsford is their "war zone" - a hostile territory they need to escape if
they want to get clean and stay clean.

The drug dealers, pimps, hookers and other users swarming downtown are
their deadly triggers.

And they target the weak.

The latest controversial Sally Ann downtown proposal to add a bridge
recovery house with a transient shelter in downtown Abbotsford would be
absolute "insanity" for them, said most of the addicts interviewed by the
Abbotsford News.

The Salvation Army is proposing to move men from Miracle Valley, after
three to six months of treatment, to a bridge house on Cyril Street in
downtown Abbotsford, to provide them with low-cost housing and employment
support.

The organization also wants to open up a 10-bed transient shelter in the
same facility.

Forty-eight addicts and alcoholics agreed to an interview with the
Abbotsford News.

The majority of addicts - while grateful for the work of the Salvation Army
- - said they are completely against a recovery house being located in
downtown, especially mixing a transient shelter house with addicts in recovery.

The said the location is wrong.

A 27-year-old addict shook his head in disbelief.

"They'd put them right back into the fire - right to the corner of crack
and heroin. It's crazy," he said.

Another addict, 37, who was a transient with no fixed address before he got
into treatment, said it's a "very bad" idea. He knows. He's been there.

"Transients are using drugs, or they're dealing, and they're usually
involved in crime, they're using drugs right in the Sally Ann food
lineups," he said.

"They're poking heroin, they're smoking rock (crack cocaine) and smoking
pot at the Sally Ann shelter on Morey Street now," says another addict who
stayed at the Abbotsford facility in December.

It's worse than most people can imagine, he said.

Another man said it's a deadly mix, because the downtown has all the
triggers that can cause recovering addicts to slip down the road to
addiction again.

One man said he was at Miracle Valley for six months.

"If you moved me to downtown Abbotsford, I know it wouldn't work."

On the other hand, some men said that drugs are everywhere and the proposed
Sally Ann location would be a good one, because the men who are clean may
influence others to do the same.

"No matter where you go, there's always going to be alcohol and drugs.

"If you want it, you can get it delivered to your home," said one addict.

The men were asked where they would choose to live to have the best chance
of success in recovery.

Not one answered "downtown."

To a man, they said the best place for an addict in recovery is to live in
either a quiet rural area or a safe home in a suburb - far away from the
war zone.

Abbotsford council will be voting on the Sally Ann proposal, to change its
downtown zoning to accommodate a bridge house and shelter, on May 27 at the
evening council meeting.