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She’s an effective communicator with politicians, has been a board member with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, is a strong advocate for decriminalization so users know just what they’re getting in their drugs and has been a volunteer policy adviser to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

Ward didn’t start using herself until her mid-30s. Born in Hamilton, she lived for a time in Halifax before switching coasts in 1999 at age 26. She studied history at the University of B.C. and was an artist at Gallery Gachet, an artist-run centre with the slogan, ‘Art is a Means of Survival.’

But she was also on a cocktail of prescribed psychiatric drugs that didn’t seem to be doing her any good. In fact, they made her feel not herself, like she hadn’t had a moment of clarity, of enjoying herself, for years. She had done a little bit of recreational cocaine use over the years, but at that point, in 2008, she began smoking crack cocaine regularly. Homeless for a couple of years, she got into social housing in 2010 and just turned 47 last week.

Ward has the street cred and the eyes on the ground to alert the city to things it would have no way of knowing about otherwise.

“Everything interconnects,” she said. “It’s strange to think about but there’s things that might happen here that have ripple effects that are huge, and there’s no way for the city to actually know about some of these things.”

For example, a cheque-cashing place that had been around for more than 20 years on Hastings Street suddenly was closed for good one day. So now, without warning, there was no place for many people to cash their welfare cheques.