There’s a request for smokes.
"Don’t you hand those out?"
The man walking the streets at 8:30 a.m. is miffed the answer is no.
But that’s not part of the job for the two bylaw enforcement officers making their rounds on foot around downtown Prince George Wednesday morning. But there’s plenty of other things on their to-do list during their two 12-hour day shifts and two 10-hour evening shifts that make up their week.
The pest controller who just put a garbage bag of who knows what (and I’m not asking) into the garbage bin in a back alley points out a used needle shoved behind a pipe that goes up the brick wall of a downtown business. It’s at eye level. There’s a sharps container not 10 feet away.
Bylaw enforcement officers Lee and Jenny have Kevlar in their well-worn puncture-proof gloves, so with confidence Lee pries the used needle out from under the pipe and disposes of it.
There’s a chat with shaky-on-his-feet Daniel who is on the street and seven days clean, he stops to tell us. There are telltale signs of drug use as his knuckles have slow-to-heal wounds on them – your body tries to expel meth any way it can – it makes you itchy and leaves holes in your skin when you scratch. Daniel’s four kids just got put into foster care recently. They are the reason he’s staying clean, so he can get them out of the system.
There’s a short conversational check in with an on-the-move homeless man.
Curtis just got his hair cut and bylaw officers noticed. He’s afraid it won’t grow back. They offer reassurances.
Because of his lived experience – a construction worker who got injured on the job and is now burdened with an opioid addiction that resulted in his losing his family and becoming homeless - Curtis is one of two on-the-ground consultants for Bylaw Services and Strategic Initiatives. He offers insight into what’s happening with the homeless in downtown Prince George and why they do what they do when they do it.
Joining the hour-long downtown tour is Charlotte Peters, manager of the city’s bylaw services department.
She’s there to fill in the blanks in the conversation to offer the big picture of what it takes the eight-member team that’s assigned to the core of the city to get the job done.
“People have to recognize that the people living on the streets are just ordinary people,” Peters said. “Curtis is just a regular guy who experienced some horrible circumstances. People get so uncomfortable with the people downtown and I think they forget these are just people in a different set of circumstances.”
A short time later, I notice two pristine $20 bills lying on the ground in the alley we’re walking up.
Both Lee and Jenny walked right over the bills.
Not me, I was keeping my eyes on the ground because I already had a close call with a used needle on the ground last summer. I was wearing flip flops. Yeah, I know, I’m stupid.
The $40 that got picked up and put in a zippered compartment on Jenny’s equipment belt will be kept for 30 days. If it’s not claimed the City will donate it to a charity or non-profit group as advised by the participating members of the City’s Downtown Safety Hub.
A man who volunteers at a religion-based drop-in centre stops Lee and Jenny to tell them he had another encounter with the switchblade lady. (There’s a switchblade lady in downtown and that’s how she’s known? Jeepers!)
The man says all he said to her was that people could come into the centre, hear about the religion and get some food and drink and she came at him in a rage. This is the third time she’s come at him. He seemed surprised.
“Maybe don’t do that then,” Jenny states the obvious. He seemed doubtful it was anything he said that caused the stabby rage. (The graffiti we just passed said something like ‘I hate God’ so I start putting two and two together.)
The check in at the front of the Firepit Drop-In Centre takes a bit longer. There are at least eight people who have slept there but it’s hard to get an accurate count because some people cover up with blankets and tarps and never actually peek their heads out. Who knows how many people are under there? The safety check is verbal for those people, not a visual. So there’s a lot of ‘good mornings’ called out by Lee and Jenny with some mumbled responses and some enthusiastic responses by people who have their cereal with milk already in their hands as they wander off for the day.
“Hey, I’ve got those same flipflops at home they’re pretty cool,” Lee says to one man. No response comes back.
“Ok, take care, we’ll come back in a while to see how you guys are doing!”
The point is to make sure there is no one blocking entrances, or sidewalks, so those who are pressed up against the wall are left there. At the corner there’s a huge sharps receptacle for used needles. This one is a one-way only – no backsies. Once the used needle goes in it doesn’t come back out.
There’s more of these types coming to downtown corners near you. Garbage cans in downtown are emptied every day and are placed strategically near places where people tend to congregate.
There’s a social aspect to those who hang out downtown. Even if people are housed, they’ll still come out to hang with their friends, Peters points out.
“There’s definitely a social component to downtown,” she added.
Trying to keep downtown Prince George functioning is a balancing act between helping those who are literally sleeping on the streets, supporting the businesses affected by their presence, and how the city and its supporting organizations come together to manage the situation so everyone is safe.
Bylaw services has 21 enforcement officers, and deals with different areas. There’s a team of eight designated to the downtown.
To have this team of eight on the downtown streets offers some continuity and that makes it easier for relationships, however tentative, to be developed between the officers and the street people, Peters said.
Bylaw Services and Strategic Initiatives and Networking have come together to offer some solutions to the downtown issues, which has been borne out of the Community Safety Hub.
Bylaw Services works with Downtown Prince George and there’s a program to remove the graffiti and biohazardous material. The bylaw officers are taking photos of graffiti and sending those to Downtown PG so it can be taken care of, Peters said.
“We’re doing our best to try to address all these issues and it’s an ongoing collaborative effort with many downtown agencies,” Peters said.
Other bylaw enforcement officers are assigned to address other issues, including parking, and violations in neighbourhoods – the neighbour’s grass is too high, they’re sprinkling on the wrong days, their garbage is out too soon, animal control for that troublesome cat, animals at large, a barking dog, and lately there’s been a lot of people making their driveways bigger which goes against a zoning bylaw. For more information visit Prince George bylaw services.
