Whenever someone makes a disparaging comment about a certain Prince George neighbourhood with a reputation for crack shacks, home invasions, knife attacks, shootings and even daylight murder, Willow Arune will not hesitate to say otherwise.
Arguably Prince George's answer to the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver or Whalley in Surrey, The Hood, as it's known, has gained an unfair reputation asserts the 65-year-old former lawyer.
She and fellow retiree Sonia Pang, a 73-year-old former nurse, along with a clutch of small dogs and cats, have lived at the corner of Milburn and Oak for about a decade in a 1,400-square-foot single-level home they snapped up for $62,000, and say they wouldn't have it any other way.
"It's funny, we've lived here for 10 years, our neighbours across the street for six, the neighbour next to that for I think 20 and the neighbour next to that probably for 20 as well, and we have not had any problems, literally not any problems," Arune said.
"Sorry, I have to correct myself. We've had our car broken into once and when we were in Vancouver, in underground protected parking, we had it broken into four times."
What really got her dander up was a story The Citizen ran that gave the impression the area was overrun by gangs to the point where anytime someone so much as painted a fence, it would be tagged with a spray-painted marker of territory the next night.
"Nobody that I'm aware of in this area, and I'm covering a fair distance here, has been threatened by gangs if they renovate their house," Arune said. "That was the most extremely ridiculous statement that [I've read]."
Across the street from Arune, Al and Tracey Thompson have lived in their home for five years.
"You see the odd hooker walking down the street but that's it," Al said as he did some yard work in front of the 12,000-square-foot home they purchased five years ago. It's now assessed at $170,000.
Thompson, 73 years old and retired, even left lumber for a project out front and it remained untouched.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a heck of a good place to live," he said.
Whenever there is trouble, police have been quick to respond, said Tracey, a 48-year-old custodian. Crack shacks and other such operations usually last no longer than two weeks, she said.
It was much the same sentiment from Vicki Bryant, 59, at the corner of Milburn and Norwood. Bryant, who works at a downtown bakery, lived in the area for most of her life and other than the occasional encounter has had little trouble.
"Mind you, we take all the precautionary measures too," Bryant said, noting she locks her hanging flower pots after one was stolen. Her home was robbed about a year ago - she lost some jewelry and a pool cue - but admitted she left the door open too.
"You just got to go with what you go with," Bryant said. "If they're out here smoking and they ask you for a smoke, you give them a smoke and they leave you alone.
"You don't go 'C'mon you bum, get out of here!' I think it's all in attitude plus I think it's who your friends are and whatnot."
Even Doug Graham, who lives on Oak Street near Monkley Avenue, not far from where Darren Munch was shot and left to die on the road last August, said the area's reputation for violence and crime is overstated.
Graham said he was asleep at the time of the shooting but added shells from the shooting were found in his driveway. Nearly a year later, he was standing in his driveway having a smoke.
"It's quiet," he said. "Where else in Prince George can you live that hasn't had their ups and downs? I mean, there are drug busts all over town."
Graham and his wife moved into their current home eight years ago after leaving Vancouver Island for Prince George. They rented it for awhile and then bought it from the owner, who had to act quickly on a transfer of his job, for a rock-bottom $44,000.
Next door, a decidedly gregarious Peter Girioux said the neighbourhood has improved. Where there were as many as seven crack shacks in the vicinity as short as a year ago, Giroux said there are now zero and credited the police.
"That takedown unit they've got, they're pretty good," Girioux said.
The 67-year-old former bouncer has lived in the VLA for 14 years all told and raised two sons and a daughter.
"My daughter's an accountant, my one son's a chef and my other son's a skateboard instructor," Girioux said. "I must be doing something right."
People do get robbed "but nothing too bad because we watch each other."
The area is formally known as the VLA, named after the Veteran's Land Act, the legislation under which returning servicemen to purchase land with the help of government loans following the Second World War.
The site set aside for the purpose eventually grew to two blocks each side of Pine Street from 20th to the Highway 97 and two blocks each side of Spruce Street south of Highway 97.
However, the lower-rent section is discernibly the lower elevation area from 20th Avenue to Diefenbaker Avenue and in Lombardy Mobile Home Park east of Norwood.
Prince George RCMP spokesman Craig Douglass said the area keeps police busy "but do we go in there with rifles and shotguns every time we go in there? It's not like that at all, we just go in there like on any other call in any other area in town and it just happens we go in there more frequently."
Douglass said police don't have the luxury of dedicating a handful of police cruisers to patrolling the area exclusively, but if there is one thing working in its favour, it's the location.
Douglas said a satellite policing station has never been established in the VLA because it is a short drive from the detachment.
"When you have 20 police cars at any given time on the road, there's a good chance that many of them are close to the office, which means going through the VLA in a lot of those cases," Douglass said.
The VLA is home to a park, an elementary school and a community garden but perhaps the biggest gathering spot is Hadih House at the corner of Pine Street and Porter Avenue. The social agency offers services aimed at low-income people - from laundry facilities and access to a computer, telephone and fax machine to a food box buying club, a pantry and a diabetic community kitchen.
On almost any given sunny Saturday afternoon, you can find a dozen or so people converged at Hadih House enjoying a picnic of barbecued hotdogs and hamburgers. Julie Sam said the drop-in centre is a major reason why she's lived in the neighbourhood off and on for 15 years.
Sam, a 48-year-old homemaker who lives on Pine Street, said she's rarely encountered trouble but admits to staying in at night.
"During the day, you can walk around," she said.
Ben Galbraith, 50, who's lived on Spruce Street since 2006, said he has no reason to be afraid because he steers clear of trouble.
"It all depends on who you talk to," said Galbraith, who's on disability.
Over at the community garden, Gary Stephen, 59, said there have been moments over the last seven years he's lived in the neighbourhood but added there have been signs of improvement. Stephen collects discarded needles, or "rigs" as he calls them, for Northern Health and has noticed a decline in their number.
"For me it's down, it's really down, but they're still there," Stephen said.
A more immediate concern was ongoing vandalism and theft at the community garden. Stephen was upset to see a cabbage go missing from what he says has become a popular gathering spot.
Not everyone is as upbeat as Arune and others.
Aurora Cozza, 50, has lived in the area for most of her life and the only reason she continues to stay is to keep an eye on her 84-year-old mother.
She said there was a significant amount of crime last year. When some of the suspects in some stabbings and shootings used her front yard of her home at the corner of Victoria Street and Strathcona Avenue to hide from police, Cozza built a six-foot-high fence around the property to keep them out.
"I'm gonna say yes," said Cozza, who works at Four Points by Sheraton, when asked if the crime rate has improved.
But she went on to point out several homes, mostly rental properties, where there has been trouble over the years. The contrast with the well-kept properties is jarring for Cozza.
"I love to drive up the street and look at the trees, they're so pretty and everything," Cozza said as she stood outside her mother's home on Victoria.
"And then you look over and there's a sugar shack... you can tell. There are people who've lived here 40-50 years and unfortunately, they have to put up with the crime."
A short time later, four RCMP cruisers burst onto Victoria with their sirens blaring and lights flashing. They turn onto Quince via Porter and Strathcona before stopping in front of a house.
But the commotion soon ends because it turns out to be a false alarm. What a neighbour thought was a break and enter turns out to be a resident returning home.
