By Spencer Sterritt

Nanaimo neighbourhood handles homeless camp themselves

Sep 29, 2017 | 5:27 PM

NANAIMO — Fed up with the noise and alleged increase in car thefts, a Nanaimo neighbourhood took it upon themselves to remove a homeless camp across the road.

The bush surrounding the camp in the 10 block of Milton St., where the street starts near Comox Rd., was removed Friday morning.

Neighbourhood spokesman Jeremy Wright said they tolerated the camp and the increasing traffic it brought to their street, but eventually something had to be done.

“There’s always been a little bit of crime, you’ve always had to lock your car, but the traffic started to become more apparent. The same traffic that would break into cars in the middle of the night was starting to show up in the middle of the day,” he told NanaimoNewsNOW.

“As we started to see more garbage and hear fights and screaming come out of the bush, we started calling the cops more and more throughout the summer. It’s been an upward trend of RCMP calls.”

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Wright said it was mostly tents behind the bush, but one “hovel” was built out of garbage, sticks and foam. It even had an address number, 8, outside.

RCMP and bylaw were on scene Friday after being alerted to the situation. This action was taken before the property was taken before City Council to be labelled a nuisance property.

Wright said they decided to take action at a meeting earlier in the week. Southern Rail, who use the railway tracks cutting across the land being squatted on, said they footed the bill for removal.

Four men were in the bush Friday morning when removal efforts began. Wright said tearing down what had been their home wasn’t as tense a situation as it could have been.

“They seemed kind of upset but none of them were unruly. They just expressed they were sad things were going the way they were. A lot of the traffic, a lot of the garbage, a lot of the issues with security and cars didn’t happen by the people living in the bush, but the traffic created by those they know.”

Looking to the future, Wright said he was disappointed the situation came to this and said it was unfortunate the men had nowhere to go. While recognizing the issue of affordable housing and homelessness is a complex one, he suggested turning Nanaimo’s numerous vacant schools into dormitories with services.

There will be very little room to hide a camp in the winter, but when the foliage returns in spring Wright said the neighbourhood has high hopes.

“What we’re going to do is hope it doesn’t get bad again because this has been one Hell of a situation to try and deal with.”

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit