ANOTHER NEIGHBOURHOOD FED UP

A pregnant mother fed up with the escalation of drug trafficking and
prostitution in her Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood wants to
form a community group to rid the streets of crime.

Gail Didicher, who lives on East 21st Avenue near Fraser Street, said
she and her husband Mark are tired of repeatedly phoning police about
problem drug houses and prostitutes working outside their front door.

"The second day I lived here, I opened up the curtains and there was a
prostitute standing there," said Didicher, who moved to the area
almost two years ago. "I was livid."

Pointing to the success of the neighbouring Dickens Community Crime
Watch Group, Didicher says she's learned group action is more
effective than her futile calls to police. "We were told the more you
squeak, the more the police will come."

To get started, the proposed Livingston Area Neighbourhood Improvement
Group will hold its first meeting Feb. 4 at Sir Charles Tupper High
School, 418 East 24th Ave. The meeting runs from 7 to 9 p.m.

Aside from drugs and prostitution, Didicher said property crime,
increased traffic, speeding, garbage and establishing a business
development group will be on the meeting's agenda.

Residents living in the area running from East 16th Avenue to King
Edward and from Main to Fraser streets are invited to attend. Guest
speakers will include representatives from city hall, neighbourhood
integrated services teams, local community police offices and the
Dickens crime watch group.

Peter Wohlwend, a co-ordinator of the Dickens group, said Didicher is
headed in the right direction. Since Wohlwend, who lives on Windsor
Street, and other neighbours banded together two years ago, his
neighbourhood has become "like heaven," he said.

Through crime watch patrols and its working relationship with the city
and police, the Dickens group was able to shut down a crack house on
East 20th Avenue and a garage where drug dealers and prostitutes were
plying their trade. Neighbours have also spruced up the streets with
gardening along the boulevards

"I would say there's about an 80 per cent drop in drug trafficking and
prostitution," he said. "It's a lengthy process, but it's better than
the alternative."

Community activists point to "slumlords" who rent the houses to drug
dealers and prostitutes as the root of the neighbourhoods' problems.
In Didicher's neighbourhood, police have told her eight known
prostitutes are living there.

"If it wasn't for the slumlords and people they rent to, this
neighbourhood would be a lot better," she said. "When you have
resident prostitutes, they're hard to get rid of."

A problem house at 647 East 19th Ave. was recently boarded up after a
City of Vancouver neighbourhood integrated services team shut it down.

"It's our belief that there were a lot of drugs coming out there,"
said Const. Ian Carter of the Little Mountain-Riley Park-South Cambie
policing office.

"The hookers would come and go, buying their drugs there. They'd crash
there and it just became a meeting place and a supply source."

Despite the work of residents and police, drug dealers and prostitutes
are generally just displaced to other areas. Wohlwend said it's
unfortunate another neighbourhood is now dealing with their old
problems, but hopes one day politicians will present a better solution.

"We realize what we're doing but we were so desperate, we had to take
care of ourselves. What else could we do?" said Wohlwend, who called
the concept of a designated red-light district a "hot-potato issue"
that he couldn't comment on.

As for Didicher, she said pushing prostitutes from place to place is
not her goal. "A vast majority of us agree that a red light district
is needed in the city somewhere. But everybody has the same problem:
not in my backyard."