Pubdate: Sat, 02 Apr 2005
Source: Saturday Okanagan,  The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Saturday Okanagan
Contact:  http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1206
Author: Chuck Poulsen The Okanagan Saturday
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DRUGS DRIVE STREET LIFE IN DOWNTOWN KELOWNA

Editor's note: Okanagan Saturday reporter Chuck Poulsen recently went for a 
walk in downtown Kelowna with Kelowna RCMP Insp. Cam Forgues. What follows 
are Poulsen's observations, written in a narrative, column-like style.

By CHUCK POULSEN The Okanagan Saturday

I didn't ask his name, but the name Rocky fits a face that has been pounded 
into scars, fresh open wounds and a nose flattened by who knows how many fists

Rocky is heading down Leon Avenue in Kelowna to the park for lunch. His 
lunch is riding on top of a small, twisted cart

Sustenance consists of two pieces of bread, a few fingers-full of peanut 
butter in a discarded container and four strawberries well past their 
expiry date. It has been a lucky morning of Dumpster diving for Rocky

"Look at these strawberries," says Rocky. "I'll put the peanut butter on 
the bread and the strawberries on top." He abandoned his bigger shopping 
cart two weeks ago when he heard -- incorrectly -- that the police would be 
confiscating it and arresting him

His new cart, scrounged from a bin, is so small that he has to drag his 
bottle collection beside it. The plastic bag holding the bottles is torn, 
and, no matter how many new knots he tries to tie in it, the bottles keep 
tumbling out like socks the rest of us might drop on the way to the washing 
machine

You may hope Rocky gets some help, but that's a moot point

Rocky could get a place to stay, but he doesn't want one. Rocky could get a 
job, but he doesn't want one. Rocky could get into counselling, but he 
doesn't want it. Rocky could get into detox within a week, but he doesn't 
want that either. He could then get into treatment, but that isn't one of 
Rocky's wants

Kelowna RCMP Insp. Cam Forgues and I spent two hours on Leon Avenue, 
talking to the people who have been making the news this past year and 
scaring the bejesus out of Kelowna residents. Tourism industry people are 
worried about the effect on visitors of a panorama of poverty and drug 
abuse -- a very short stone's throw from their lake.

I didn't take out a note pad. I didn't tell them I worked for a newspaper. 
Nothing spooks them like a camera or notepad. I didn't ask for names 
because I didn't intend to use any of their real names. I handed out 
cigarettes in exchange for conversation. They all smoke cigarettes.

When you ask how they can afford cigarettes, they will say they pick up 
butts off the street. There are no butts on the street because no one who 
can afford to buy cigarettes drives down to Leon and drops them on the 
street. Forgues asks if they shoplift, break into cars, hold up gas 
stations and convenience stores to get money for the cigarettes and the 
drugs -- which are much cheaper than cigarettes -- but they say they don't.

Ask how they can support a $200/month cigarette habit when that is about 
half of a monthly welfare payment, and they will insist they don't steal. 
In fact, they all say they don't get welfare, but that is just one of the 
many lies.

They tell bigger lies to themselves.

Forgues asks all of them what can be done to provide help for addiction, 
and they all say that intervention and treatment are the keys. But they say 
it while pointing to others who need help, not themselves. If there is a 
word that applies to Leon beyond the word drugs, it is denial.

The people we spoke with admit they use drugs. During our stop in front of 
the Gospel Mission, everyone we spoke with admitted he or she is a druggie. 
Telling a cop they use drugs is of no worry. If the police were to arrest 
everyone on Leon who was using drugs, they'd have to roll three Greyhound 
buses down that street every morning to pick up all the offenders. The 
druggies know they are not going to jail for using drugs and that it's a 
safe subject, even for a cop to hear.

Last year at this time, the drug problem in the downtown exploded, 
especially with summer. This year?

Says Forgues: "I'm waiting for the good weather to predict that. With the 
good weather last year, it got a lot worse. We'll see what happens this year."

George, a veteran of this street who is driving a stolen grocery store 
cart, is an addict, too, but he still views himself as a counsellor to 
others. Again, there is that denial and sure belief that the problem 
belongs to others, not to George.

Says George: "Crystal meth is big, but I still think the crack is bigger. 
Then there is the crack mixed with opiates (heroin) that is now coming 
around. That's the biggest nightmare of them all. That will twist and turn 
anyone inside out." Marijuana is child's play to the Leon crowd.

I asked George what level of education he had received because he was very 
articulate. I couldn't get that answer, but the two surprises for this 
reporter was how friendly the druggies were when not threatened by any more 
than conversation and how intelligently some expressed themselves.

"You noticed that too?" said Forgues. "Go figure."

There is a distinction between the hapless druggies and the dealers who 
supply them. The druggies were friendly and cordial about talking with a 
cop. But when the dealers -- who were otherwise strutting like cocks of the 
walk -- saw Forgues's uniform, they scattered.

When you ask the druggies about dealers, they clam up in a panic. Forgues 
says it's the street code not to rat, but it's also a fear that the dealers 
might cut the supply if someone displeases them.

Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill McKinnon has stated that soft-sentencing judges 
thwart police efforts to remove the dealers and, therefore, the supply of 
drugs from the street.

Forgues says he'd like to have a unit dedicated to dealers, but these guys 
are slippery.

"They never have a large amount on them when they're dealing," said 
Forgues. "If we get them, they swallow it, or they will have middlemen to 
negotiate. They keep the large stash hidden in bushes or garbage cans. 
There is a lot of work in busting a dealer, a lot of surveillance. We don't 
have all of the resources we'd like for it. Then, when they get to court, 
well, sometimes it's not worth it."

Frank says there is much anger on the streets. We found it inside the 
Mission when three people spotted Forgues's uniform. They blasted by him 
and out the door, muttering unpleasantries as they passed.

Says Karl, one of the managers at the Mission: "Things have improved with 
the police presence, but there are still big problems. Those three are 
examples of big problems."

Cindy sits on a blanket in front of the Mission. She says she is a mother 
confessor to other girls on the street, though she is only in her early 
20s. But she has a residence -- one of the homes for women -- so that gives 
her some credibility with those women who are sleeping in alleys.

"I try to help them," says Cindy, who is using meth herself.

Standing next to her is Jane, an 18-year-old.

Forgues takes one look at her and says: "Meth."

He adds: "You're so young. You have your whole life in front of you. This 
stuff will kill you."

Jane says her mother would take her back in, but not until she kicks the 
meth. Jane sits down for a hug from Cindy. Cindy rocks her like a baby.

Bill likes crack, but he will take any drug he can get his hands on. He 
makes a point that all the Leon habitues agree with: The drugs are so 
prevalent that once you hit Leon, you may never get out.

"The war on drugs is lost," he says.

He and the others hang around all day long with nothing to do. Bill says 
they are all "doing time" as if the street was a prison from which they 
can't -- or perhaps won't -- escape.

Betty takes exception to Forgues's presence. She seems to be suffering from 
paranoia and accuses Forgues of following her. Street nurses say 15 -20 per 
cent of the Leon people are mentally ill and not on drugs. For lack of a 
better term they are called the "truly homeless."

Police think that figure is too high. More likely, they say, 15-20 per cent 
have both mental and drug issues.

Selena Stearns of the Drop-In Centre is a champion of the street people. 
She bristles at my suggestion that the whole problem is about drugs and 
that homelessness is just a side-effect. She says the truly homeless aren't 
getting the help they need. But, even for the people with mental problems, 
drugs figure in the picture.

"Mental issues often open the door to drug use," says Stearns.

Detox at institutions, such as Crossroads, are available. It takes about a 
week for an addict to get in. It's a week during which a person can change 
his or her mind, and often does.

Stearns and everybody else involved with helping addicts agree that once a 
person comes forward in search of help, it needs to be available immediately.

Police are now regularly taking homeless to Kelowna General Hospital for 
psychiatric assessment. The hospital doesn't seem to be ready for it.

Says Forgues: "They are eventually assessed by the doctors, but our members 
are off the road with them for three or four hours. The doctors have to 
treat those with more serious injuries first, but it's very time-consuming 
for us."

Forgues said most of those who are assessed are deemed to be mentally fit. 
They are released back onto the street, time wasted. The Drop-In Centre was 
serving spaghetti for lunch. The centre appears to have a different 
clientele than the Mission, although some people grab lunch at both places.

Many of the people in the Drop-in Centre are sincerely trying to beat their 
bad luck.

Hank, a regular at the centre, is clean and sober, but he has diabetes, 
which is making employment almost impossible. He has a home, but needs the 
free meals.

Nothing burns Forgues more than drug dealers and squeegee kids with money 
in their pockets, eating free meals that could better go to those who 
really need them.

Chris Hartt, who operates the job placement program at the Ki-low-na 
Friendship Centre on Leon, said it's a myth that people can't find work in 
Kelowna. By summer, he'll have 200 job postings on the board for 
construction labourers, landscapers and the likes.

"The job situation has never been better here," said Hartt. "People can get 
work if they want it."

However, the scene on Leon is a deterrent in itself to those who want a job.

The Friendship Centre recently received a letter from the Rutland Community 
Centre, which had referred two job-seekers to Hartt.

The letter said both people went to the employment office, but were scared 
off by street people. They said they were too afraid to return. The Kelowna 
RCMP were stung by media reports that they were going to begin confiscating 
stolen shopping carts. The Globe and Mail and CBC happily picked it up 
while many in the public clamoured about the heartlessness of Kelowna cops.

Forgues says none of it was true. Police will seize a cart if it's full of 
drugs. They will impound a cart and its contents for safekeeping if a truly 
homeless person goes in for drug or mental illness treatment. However, 
Forgues said there was never a change in that policy nor the April 1 
clampdown date that was widely reported. Forgues is an old street cop, but 
he is also quite clearly a kind man with compassion for the addicts and 
mentally ill. I think he purely despises the dealers.

I suggested that the public demands action and then complains when action 
is taken.

"On the shopping cart story, are there days when you feel you can't win for 
losing?" I asked.

Said Forgues: "It must have been a slow news day. Most of the letters we 
get from the public are very supportive of what we're doing."

Forgues is all for the Four Pillars initiative. Immediate help has to be 
available to those who need and want it. The police, he says, will look 
after their pillar of enforcement, and he thinks others are sincerely 
mobilizing to handle harm reduction, prevention and treatment. "In our 
downtown core, there is a homeless issue -- those who are truly homeless 
with mental illness," said Forgues. "But there are those who are drug 
addicted, and they are here by choice.

"They get three meals a day in the downtown core. They associate with like 
friends who are drug addicted. It's a culture of its own. "We seem to be 
fostering that. If we keep feeding them without giving them any other 
resources, we're not helping them." Forgues asked me what I thought of the 
problem.

OK.

With the small exception of the truly homeless, it's all about drugs. Those 
who rap the rest of us for not supplying enough resources for the truly 
homeless usually have a vocational self-interest in pounding that drum. 
They like to call themselves advocates.

There is no solution, but there is improvement. We all make choices in 
life, some good, some bad. There is an old saying: You've made your bed, 
and now you have to lie in it.

What's unfair to the rest of us is that their bed is on our streets.

Chuck Poulsen has covered the Leon Avenue drug scene for several years. He 
has also been the reporter for The Daily Courier's Be an Angel fund, which 
has dealt with the poor and poverty issues since it started nine years ago. 
Poulsen also worked for The Province newspaper for three years on the night 
police beat, stationed out of downtown police headquarters at Main and 
Hastings streets.
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