Downtown homeless camp slowly shrinking
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on September 1, 2022.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
One of the few remaining elements of the Civic Centre tent encampment is seen Wednesday.LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
A runner using the Civic Centre track early on a week day morning provided stark contrast to the sight city residents have become accustomed to seeing there.
With the exception of one small enclave across from the public library where homeless can also be seen congregating, the proliferation of tents at the Civic Centre is for the most part gone.
According to the City, during the week of Aug. 19-25 the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Outreach Mobile Team/Community Links staff were on the site for one round per day and had 21 unique interactions with people living at the Civic Centre.
A total of 387 interactions across the city were completed by the OMT/Community Link which includes intakes, referrals and rapport-building.
Since July, the OMT has been providing outreach support and referrals to the city’s vulnerable who live in encampments throughout Lethbridge.
The City says service providers and community groups on a daily basis are extending outreach and making connections with at-risk residents. The Clean Sweep Program has responded to 150 calls of encampments in Lethbridge with about 95 per cent of those being resolved successfully, larger established ones excluded.
During camp responses since June 1, 1,048 needles and 40 pipes have been disposed of. On Aug. 10 alone, 74 needles and three pipes were cleaned up. On Aug. 10, the Clean Sweep Program removed 1,130 kilograms of debris from the Civic Centre track area.
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10-9
Great information, but I wonder if the city can tell us how many hundred thousand dollars it cost the taxpayer? Funds were diverted from other departments in the city to pay for the police/security and the clean up costs have been huge. The junk that was moved, the constant clean-up of debris and bio-hazard ( human feces ) by Puroclean, damages and graffiti removal, fire/EMS responses to the area, etc., the entire costs.
We are all tired of having a small group of radicals that feel they do not have to obey any laws and have the rights and freedoms to restrict access to areas such as the Civic Center and use of sidewalks going to the LSCO, Yates and City Hall, using the area as a toilet, refusing to leave when ordered, threatening and intimidating some who are trying to walk by and so many other impacts! We are tired and angry!
The longer these groups are allowed to act in this manner the stronger and more organized they get. This has already been seen in other provinces.
Hesitating in acting is costly and the taxpayers are the ones on the hook for it! If allowed, expect it to grow and from it spawn increased crime, drug use, addicts, damages and loss of safety while organized crime flourishes and grows in all areas of their operations.
This is completey unacceptable and the citizens will not accept a repeat next spring. The better have a plan and stop any attempts to set up right when they are setting up!
This form a lawlessness will spread throughout other areas of society and we can only secure our property and families so much, while our great federal leadership is disarming the legal, lawabiding gun owners, ingoring the facts that most of the crime is committed by guns smuggled into Canada from the US. All this while we are facing another World War and can no longer expect North America to be free from any conflict.
Some of the ways to bring down a country, weaken it so it can be easily taken over are to destroy the society with addictions, create unrest universities and public, create unrest in government so people lose faith in it and spread fear. We cannot deal with many of the issues within our own country and are allowing outside forces to control important areas within our country, after losing areas of sovereignty through free trade deals with other nations and with dealing with the United Nations.
If we cannot control lawless groups like these, we are doomed!