Return of the
housing crunch

The numbers are looking better, but the problem remains: July 1, 2003 will be a nightmare for anyone looking to move, according to the figures presented in last week’s housing budget. The budget has earmarked $18-million for social housing in the new year, almost triple 2002’s $6.5-million. But turning money into actual buildings takes time. By this time next year, less than 600 new units will be on the market. And while 1,800 units are expected to be approved for construction by the city by the end of the month, with the remaining 3,200 units of the much-touted “Solidarité 5,000” campaign promise slated for approval by the end of 2003, the city admits that the rental crunch won’t be eased until at least 2004–05. Part of the hold-up, says François Saillant, coordinator of social housing group FRAPRU, is due to resistance from the boroughs, who fear drops in property values and influxes of poor families.

“The mayor has to stand up and go into the boroughs and talk to citizens who oppose these projects,” he says. “It’s the mayor’s duty to defend the programs and explain why they are good for the boroughs and necessary for the poor.”

The Tremblay administration depended on goodwill from the boroughs to get elected, and alienating them isn’t a wise political move. But Saillant says that because the situation is so dire, “The mayor can invoke powers to bypass borough approval. As it is, it will be very difficult to meet [election] commitments.” : » Patrick Lejtenyi

Holes in shooting
gallery plans

If all goes well, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver will soon be hosting pilot project safe injection sites with parliamentary backing, a move that comes not only with a lot of controversy, but some significant questions, particularly for this city. Safe injection sites, where users can inject without fear of arrest, were designed primarily for heroin users, but up to 70 per cent of IV drug users in this city are shooting cocaine, not smack. And hard-core coke addicts inject far more often than heroin users, says Marianne Tonnalier, the director of needle-exchange program Cactus.

“The reality in Montreal is different from Europe or Vancouver,” she says. “Cocaine addicts can inject 30 to 50 times a day, compared to three, four or five times for heroin users. So the question is, how are we going to manage that?”

There are more questions she would like answers to: namely, will the sites be downtown and accessible; will there be services offered, or will it be simply a supervised shooting gallery; how will the centres integrate themselves into the community; and what will happen when you have coke users and heroin users in the same locale?

“We would like to open an injection site with a community face,” she says, “with all the colours we have here at Cactus. We’d like the project to be organized and planned with input from residents, users and the police, and not something simply parachuted in.”: » Patrick Lejtenyi

Artsy autoroute
pondered

Audrey Davis knows what the West End is missing. The Concordia Fine Arts grad has drawn up a plan to erect a huge fire-engine red periscope facing south on the Sherbrooke overpass that straddles the trench-like Décarie expressway. Those wishing to see into the hazy horizon would simply walk up a couple of stairs and take a gander. The proposal is one of several beautification possibilities that could lessen the ugliness of the city’s only north-south expressway, an issue that has been prioritized big time by the Sherbrooke Street Merchants Association.

The group had been making noise about turning the grass triangle adjacent to the Chalet Bar-B-Q restaurant into a verdant landscaped spot. But that plan looks too costly, says Décarie city councillor Marcel Tremblay, so other options are being considered.

“Taking away the distraction on this horrible Décarie speedway would be good,” says Tremblay. “When we redo that spot next summer, we’ll ask if there’s any place for public art there and how [we could arrange] a competition for an art installation.” : » Kristian Gravenor

Angel >> More money for schoolbooks After years of dealing with dwindling resources, the province’s teachers, parents and students finally got some good news: both the provincial government and the school commissions will be forking over much-needed dough - some $352-million - over the next six years to buy an estimated eight-million schoolbooks. The point of the spending is to replace the cheesy, decrepit, disco-motif books we had in the ’80s and ’90s with sleek and shiny new-millennium-new curriculum ones (the new curriculum began in 2000, when Grades 1 and 2 were combined to create Cycle 1). Some classes, however, will have to wait: new textbooks for some courses haven’t been written yet.
Insect >> Paul Martin Just how Liberal is Paul Martin? The PM-hopeful has been waffling on a couple of key issues that are close to Liberal (both big-L and small-l) hearts lately, notably Kyoto and the future of gun control. Both are topics that happen to be unpopular among western Canadian voters, where Martin is gaining support. While he supported ratification of Kyoto this week, he’s been critical of the PM’s attempts at building provincial-federal consensus, and abstained from voting to end the debate on Monday. He’s also remained mum about future gun control laws following the firearm registry fiasco.