presence of a viable retail economy, a drug economy proliferated, with an accompanying increase in crime, while police presence decreased. Crack cocaine arrived in Vancouver in 1995, and crystal methamphetamine started to appear in the DTES in 2003. In 1997 the local health authority declared a public health emergency in the DTES: Rates of HIV infection, spread by needle-sharing amongst drug users, were worse than anywhere in the world outside Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than 1000 people had died of drug overdoses. Efforts to reduce drug-related deaths in the DTES included the opening of a needle exchange in 1989, the opening of North America's first legal safe injection site in 2003, and treatment with anti-retroviral drugs for HIV. A shift among users from injected cocaine to crack cocaine use may have also slowed the spread of disease. Rates of HIV infection dropped from 8.1 cases per 100 person-years in 1997 to 0.37 cases per 100 person-years by 2011. In the 21st century, considerable investment was made in DTES services and infrastructure, including the redevelopment of the Woodward's Building and the acquisition of 23 SRO hotels by the provincial government for conversion to social housing. In 2009, The Globe and Mail estimated that governments and the private sector had spent more than $1.4 billion since 2000 on projects aimed at resolving the area's many problems. Opinions vary on whether the area has improved: A 2014 article in the National Post said, "For all the money and attention here, there is little success at either getting the area's shattered populace back on their feet, or cleaning up the neighbourhood into something resembling a healthy community." Former NDP premier Mike Harcourt described the current reality of the neighbourhood as "100-per-cent failure." Also in 2014, B.C. housing minister Rich Coleman said, "I’ll go down for a walk in the Downtown Eastside, night time or day time, and it's dramatically different than it was. It's incredibly better than it was five, six years ago." Demographics There are no official population figures for the DTES. Estimates have ranged from 6,000 to 8,000; the geographic boundaries associated with these figures was not provided. Official figures are available for the greater DTES area, which was home to an estimated 18,477 people in 2011. In comparison to the city of Vancouver overall, the greater DTES had a higher proportion of males (60% vs. 50%), more seniors (22% vs 13%),