Informant38

An advocate for sex-trade workers is opening another safe house for prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside, months before she's set to stand trial for operating a similar facility as a bawdy house.

Jamie Lee Hamilton, who ran Grandma's House at 288 Pandora St. until it closed two years ago, says the looming charges won't deter her from opening a new facility at the end of the month, because it's vital that sex-trade workers have a safe place to go.

She pointed out that she was offering a safe haven for sex trade workers and women living on the street at a time when a serial killer was at work in the Downtown Eastside. Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert "Willy" Pickton has been charged with murdering 15 of 63 women missing from the Downtown Eastside.

"Police need to think twice about that pig farm before they start hassling me," said Hamilton, scheduled to go to to court in May.