Pubdate: Thu, 19 Jan 2006
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Kim Westad
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

VICTORIA'S SAFE HAVEN ON WHEELS

PEERS Staff Provides City's Prostitutes A Few Moments' Respite From 
Life On The Streets

Christie hasn't eaten in two days, and eagerly grabs the instant 
noodles and coffee offered as she steps into the PEERS motorhome on a 
rainy Tuesday night.

The 20-year-old sex trade worker stuffs granola bars into her pink 
fur purse, along with condoms and clean needles. New clothes -- now 
that takes a little longer.

Her last client told her that her green top didn't match her black 
and red flowered skirt. Donated clothes fill a closet at the back of 
the motorhome and are soon spread across the seat as Christie 
searches for something.

"How's this?" she says, pulling a too-large and thin coat over her camisole.

"Nice, but will it keep you warm enough?" asks Tammy Arnault, one of 
two outreach workers in the motorhome that is out on the street every 
night, providing a warm and safe refuge for Victoria's sex trade 
workers. Arnault gently suggests another sweater underneath to 
Christie, who is thin and looks younger than 20.

Christie takes the advice, and socks and underwear too.

She has the jerky motions that sometimes accompany a drug binge. She 
is open about being a heroin addict, having started using five years 
ago, about the same time she started as a sex trade worker. She had 
quit school three years before "when I was 12 or 13" and ran away 
from a foster home. She met up with a "bunch of older Latino guys" 
who set her up on "dates" for a few years before she took to working 
the street full-time.

Now, she doesn't have a regular home and on Tuesday, was unsure where 
she would spent the night. Maybe with a guy she knows in Prospect Lake.

"I don't know," she shrugs. But for the moment, she's warm, rifling 
through the clothes and chatting with Arnault and Cheri Jacobs, 
co-ordinators of the PEERS (Prostitutes Empowerment Education and 
Resource Society) outreach program.

When Arnault and Jacobs started about five years ago, there was no 
motorhome. They simply walked the different strolls with Arnault's 
pitbulls Bailey and Isis, carrying backpacks filled with candies and 
condoms to give to the women.

Now, they drive the motorhome -- money was donated last year by two 
anonymous Victoria businessmen -- to a couple of different parking 
spots each night, all close to the working areas of the sex trade.

The difference in the number of people they can reach and help is dramatic.

As the 23-foot vehicle rolls to a stop at the corner of Government 
and Discovery at 9 p.m. each night, it looks more like a traveller 
who has taken the wrong turn than an innovative way to help sex trade 
workers stay safe. In a typical month about 80 individual women pop 
by, some several nights a week. The motorhome is on the street seven 
nights a week, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. and has given out more than 
10,000 clean needles in a year.

The motorhome is unmarked, but the workers know it as the place to 
get everything from food to a place to nap, chat or use the bathroom 
and brush their teeth. Arnault and Jacobs, or one of several other 
outreach workers are always there, willing to listen and help.

"These ladies don't judge us, but they're always there to help," said 
Ann, a 35-year-old mother of three who works as a sex trade worker in 
Victoria and also has a "straight job" working with the elderly in 
another city.

Another woman pops in, asking for condoms and a cigarette. In her 
puffy down jacket, slim jeans, black boots and backpack, she looks 
like a fit soccer mom and says she'll stop by later to talk.

"I've got to earn some money first," she says, heading back to a Rock 
Bay corner. It has been a slow night and she's irritated yet resigned 
at being hit by eggs earlier in the night, thrown by a carload of 
teenage girls. Often, carloads of people, usually kids, toss things: 
cups of urine, sometimes bleach or pennies.

It's warm and cosy in the motorhome, with coffee, tea, hot chocolate, 
sandwiches, snacks that can be taken along and eaten quickly between 
jobs on offer.

The aim of PEERS is to support sex workers, be it in dealing with 
addictions, leaving the trade if they so wish and in keeping safe.

Tacked up inside the motorhome are pictures of missing women, notices 
of released sex offenders, thank-you notes on scraps of paper, a bad 
date list -- a stocky blond man who held a cleaver to one woman's 
neck, another man likes to burn fingertips.

It helps that Arnault and Jacobs know what the job is like, both 
having worked on the street before.

Arnault said it's a misconception that everyone working in the sex 
trade is drug addicted, although there are many who are.

"Some do it to feed a habit, but there are so many different reasons 
and backgrounds. Some people have a baby and no other way to feed and 
clothe their children. Or it could be all they know. They may have 
been abused."

Though Arnault's parents were heroin addicts, she never had an 
addiction. She didn't have a lot growing up and it was exciting to 
have the money to treat herself well.

But she grew tired of it after 10 years. She went to PEERS and took 
one of their programs five years ago. At the time, she thought it was 
"boring," but she gradually saw changes in herself. She started to 
look people in the eye, instead of looking at the ground.

"The program changed my life and I want to do the same for other 
girls. A lot of the clients I work with I know from my previous life 
and it shows them, I did it. You can change your life too."

Money raised through the Victoria Idol music competition, which has 
its grand finale Saturday night at the Alix Goolden Hall, will go 
toward the outreach program, ensuring it continues and possibly 
expands to help more people. Ten singers will vie for the top prize 
- -- a $3,000 recording gig -- and the thrill of being Victoria's first "Idol."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom