VANCOUVER—The turkey has just gone into the oven but the smell of frying onions and sage wafts down into the TV room, a hint of the smells to come later this Christmas Day.Lying on the couch, the young woman in red pyjamas is checking Facebook on her phone. The other woman, in a black knit beanie pulled low over her forehead, is eating a plate of rice and beans.
A short while ago, they were living on the streets in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Their back stories are murky and questions are discouraged.
“No one asks anyone what brought them down here,” said the young woman in the beanie. “It’s nobody’s business. Just the fact that you’re here — most people understand why already.”
In a pair of new studies from the University of British Columbia and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, researchers found that homelessness and a history of childhood sexual abuse put Vancouver street youth at an increased risk of intravenous injection drug use and the accompanying increased risk of transmission of HIV and hepatitis C.
The studies were aimed at identifying why some high-risk youth initiate injection drug use while others do not. The research, funded by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, found that homeless youth were almost twice as likely to inject drugs as youths who were not homeless.
A separate study found those reporting childhood sexual abuse were more than two-and-a-half times as likely to start injecting drugs as those who had no history of such abuse.
“Yes, the results are probably not surprising. But these are important because these studies are examples that show for the first time that there are forces within an environment that place people at risk of initiating drug use,” said Dr. Evan Wood with the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS at St. Paul’s Hospital.
“It speaks to how early childhood trauma through things like PTSD — and after you adjust for everything else under the sun — there is an almost three-fold-higher risk, 270 per cent increase, of initiating injection drug use if there has been this trauma.”
The studies show that early intervention is effective, Wood said. He hopes policy-makers understand that early intervention strategies pay off, whether it’s in providing better housing for street youths or resources that assist youths who have suffered childhood sexual abuse.
For Gerri Tootoosis, program manager and the Christmas Day cook at Imouto Housing for Young Women in the Downtown Eastside, her own past proves what support services can do to change the future.
Tootoosis is a single mom who turned to drugs and alcohol in her 20s to dull memories of childhood sexual abuse during her early teen years. Tootoosis said she had family support but ran from the reserve to the city.
“I was too embarrassed to talk to anybody and thought that I could just ignore what had happened. But the cycle began and I know exactly how easy it is to end up on the streets,” Tootoosis said. “The simplest thing to do is help someone, but the hardest thing is knowing how to accept help. For many of the street youths down here, it’s not just a matter of giving them a meal or a bed, it’s making sure you understand what brought them there in the first place.”
Streetohome Foundation ENDCEO Ron Turnbull, who runs an organization that works with Vancouver and the province in finding permanent housing for the homeless, said the latest official figures put the number of the city’s youths under 25 who are homeless between 179 to 194.
Advocates say Vancouver has closer to 1,000 homeless youths.
“We hear the stories on the streets of youths being vulnerable and being forced to engage in sex in order to maintain their livelihood and there is no doubt that there needs to be more opportunities to stabilize youths and give them protection and choices,” Turnbull said.
The studies indicate youth homelessness is on the rise and numbers like the official count of the homeless under-reports the problem, he said.
“Their vulnerability to drug injection use and their vulnerability to being subjected to sexual abuse indicates very clearly that more needs to be done at an earlier stage and now before their issues get worse,” Turnbull said.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Petti Fong
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