Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A red van offers help to women who work on Victoria’s risky streets

The thin young woman is shaky and rubs her red, swollen eyes as she asks for clean drug supplies and accepts a bag lunch with a sandwich and juice box.

The thin young woman is shaky and rubs her red, swollen eyes as she asks for clean drug supplies and accepts a bag lunch with a sandwich and juice box.

“How’s your day been?” asks Thea Cunningham, as the woman rummages through boxes of toiletries and clothes.

The reply is a shrug and Cunningham, perched on the tailgate of the PEERS van with fellow night outreach worker Sunny Burke, asks if her eyes are bothering her, then tells her where she can get help from a doctor.

It’s a fine balance: letting someone know help is available without judging or giving overt advice.

“You just kind of feel it out and you always want people to know they can come into PEERS,” said Cunningham, who spent years as a drug- and alcohol-addicted prostitute on the streets of Victoria and Vancouver before transforming her life and becoming a PEERS outreach worker.

While some women laugh and joke with friends and the outreach workers, others are subdued.

“Every day, you see people who want to change. They are tired and the lifestyle is not easy. It’s not easy to be in a lifestyle of homelessness and addiction,” Cunningham said.

But changing is tough. “You have to reach your limit before you’ve had enough and are ready to change.”

PEERS, a non-profit support group for sex workers, provides day and night outreach.

The red van acts as a meeting place and mobile harm-reduction centre, with clean needles and mouthpieces for crack pipes — along with free clothes and toiletries, donated by local stores and individuals.

One box contains small bottles of shampoo, makeup and toothpaste, while another has clothes, shoes and — to the delight of a young man digging deep inside — a watch and a cellphone.

There’s an impromptu fashion show as women hold up items of clothing. Fancier shirts and shoes are turned aside for sweat pants, comfy pyjamas and runners.

“The girls are so happy to be getting something, whether it’s a [feather] boa or deodorant or a pair of socks,” Cunningham said.

PEERS operates on a shoestring, especially with recent grant reductions, said acting executive director Lauren Casey. “If we had 800 people who could each donate $20 a month, we would have enough to serve the population.”

There is no accurate picture of the numbers of women working on Victoria’s streets, but Cunningham has seen an influx of women in their early 20s.

Dozens seek out the outreach workers each night, but the majority are inside, working as escorts, and have less contact with service providers.

While the street population represents only about 15 per cent of the industry, it’s the most stigmatized and vulnerable, Casey said — something that’s borne out by the bad-date sheet handed out by PEERS and other organizations.

“Male hit female sex worker on the side of her head. He kicked her out of his vehicle on bridge naked and threw her clothes and purse at her,” says one account, describing the perpetrator as “Matt” driving an older silver or gold SUV.

Another woman describes a man who told her that women should know their place, then backhanded her across both cheeks.

Victoria’s streets appear to be becoming more dangerous for sex workers, Cunningham said.

“It could be the sort of drugs — the ones made out of garbage and sink chemicals.”

jlavoie@timescolonist.com