Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: David Carrigg LU'S: A PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS? This 'Social Enterprise' Will Offer A Special Service - And Without Government Money A pharmacy focused solely on women's needs is scheduled to open in the Downtown Eastside next month. Lu's: A Pharmacy for Women will serve female clients uncomfortable at the existing 19 licensed pharmacies in the Downtown Eastside. Those small pharmacies provide daily methadone to 1,400 heroin addicts, of whom about 500 are female. "This will likely be the first women's-only pharmacy in North America," said Caryn Duncan, executive director of the Vancouver Women's Health Collective, which will run the pharmacy. Duncan said the non-profit collective hasn't received government money for the pharmacy project, which includes renovating the ground floor of a three-level hotel at 29 West Hastings St. Instead, it's backed by community groups such as the Vancouver Foundation, the VanCity Community Foundation and the B.C. Social Enterprise Fund, as well as construction donors and the University of B.C. Architecture Department. "We're finding a way to avoid reliance on government funding by setting up a profit-making project that funds the non-profit," Duncan said. "This is being built on a shoestring budget." The pharmacy will be a "social enterprise," a funding concept used in the Downtown Eastside for the past decade. The idea is that the venture makes profit, which then goes into the umbrella non-profit group. In the Vancouver women's collective's case, any profits will go to the non-profit's core business of operating a health information centre for women. The collective currently has revenues of about $100,000 a year. Those are expected to rise to $1 million a year when the pharmacy is operating. Duncan cites as her motivators successful Downtown Eastside social enterprises such as the Potluck Cafe and Atira Women's Resource Society's property-management business. The Pivot Legal Society has also created a social enterprise called Pivot LLP, a law firm operating out of the same building on the 600-block East Hastings. United We Can, a bottle depot, is also very successful and uses no government funding. Duncan is mindful of the perception the Downtown Eastside is over-serviced by non-profit groups, given that Lu's Pharmacy is the latest service to be added. She recounts a conversation with a senior Ministry of Health staffer when she was trying to get government money for the pharmacy. Duncan said the staffer told her the ministry didn't want to "pour more money" into the Downtown Eastside. "But what we're offering is unique. There's no duplication," she said. There are several women-based Downtown Eastside non-profits offering a range of services, including shelter beds and outreach and sex-worker support - but no pharmacy. The largest of the women's groups is the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, while the United Church operates a women-only drop-in facility and Bridge Housing Society runs a women's-only shelter that is much prized by marginalized women in the community. There are also three agencies offering help specifically for sex workers. Duncan supports diversity of services in the Downtown Eastside because of the nature of the community. She said some marginalized women who are not sex workers will not use services that may imply they are in the sex industry. Pivot Legal Society's John Richardson argues that non-profits provide services more cheaply than a government enterprise would. "Things are pretty efficient in terms of how hard people work and what value gets delivered. If you had government come in and pay government salaries for all the things the non-profits are currently doing, it would be a lot more expensive." Richardson said the most successful charity in the neighbourhood is PHS Community Services Society, formerly the Portland Hotel Society, led by power couple Mark Townsend and Liz Evans, and Dan Small, the husband of NDP MLA Jenny Kwan. PHS runs social housing, respite and hospice beds, detox services, a life-skills centre, art gallery, VanCity bank branch and a dental clinic. The charity is also a spearhead for harm reduction through its supervised-injection site and needle exchange. "The Portland is interesting," said Richardson. "I still don't understand how the Portland works. They get stuff done. Mark manages to attract and keep around him very, very capable young people. He attracts and motivates them. "The Portland is an example of how the free market of non-profits can really accomplish things when it's doing well." Richardson is hopeful his own society will follow suit, and lists a string of impressive legal achievements. "Our salaries are low. Our lawyers make half to a third of what they would make in the private market, because they love doing the work," he said. The success of social enterprises in the Downtown Eastside is not tracked and no one keeps a record of how many there are, but Richardson counters criticism that the area is awash with duplicated services. "You might have two things that look like a drop-in centre and think they are the same thing, so you might as well merge them. But they might have very different perspectives on service delivery. One might have a very Christian orientation and the other harm reduction, so they don't overlap at all for the people that use them." Duncan is confident the pharmacy will meet its first-year budget of $1 million a year, which is expected to return a profit in 2010 of $83,000. If the pharmacy does initially lose money, Duncan said, the society has secured a $50,000 line of credit through VanCity as well as $60,000 in grants to back the project. "We are planning for the worst-case scenario, which is revenue shortfall," she said. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart