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A Hamilton city hall task force — created to change public behaviour in the downtown core — was told Monday that — it needed a change in attitude. The “task force on cleanliness and security in the downtown core” met to discuss a potential “nuisance bylaw”, hoping to find new ways to reduce the number of marginalized city residents, that congregate in the core. But the meeting didn’t go quite as planned.
Two business associations banded together hoping to put pressure on the city, to increase police presence, and by-law enforcement downtown. Especially outside the Right House at King and Hughson. What they got instead was a bit of a surprise, to almost everyone.
Irene Hubar: “I am sick to death of it. And the public good and public safety is more important, and over-rides anyone’s human rights”.
Irene Hubar is clearly frustrated. And this is why: Day after day she says, undesirable street people loiter near the front of the Right House — scaring away potential tenants that she, is trying to attract.
The property owner has spent nearly a million dollars in the last year improving the building’s interior — but outside, is a problem he can’t fix. In the last month alone police made five arrests here — four of them for drug trafficking. Irene came to the ” Task Force on Cleanliness, and Security in the Downtown Core ” — begging for help: “Let’s put some teeth in the dog! Something has to change”!
Walter Furlan lives and works on a section of Barton street that has not seen a million dollar investment — and he used to have similar problems, from similar people: “I’ve been around long enough to know that if you make a rule that says ‘ get out ‘ you know, ‘get out of here ‘ — they may come back and put a rock through my window, right”?
Walter believes some things should change. Like, public perceptions, and attitudes: “Talk to the people. Find out where they come from. They’re just regular people, havin’ a coffee, hangin’ out. I mean, if there’s bad behaviour, we have the laws in place to take care of that”.
And according to those laws — these people — are doing nothing wrong.
Kelly Barnett is with Hamilton Municipal Bylaw Enforcement: “You can’t prevent people from using public streets. Even if they choose to loiter”.
And these protesters say, since the Right House decided to push — they decided to shove back.
Jim Jaszewski of Hamilton Coalition Against Poverty: “We decided to target the Right House first, because of the way the treat the people hanging out here”.
So what is the answer? Well this, anti-poverty advocate — is asking the same question — and offering a suggestion.
Maria Antelo of the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic: “I want to know what people do? What do they do in their daily lives to be part of the solution? We need to include, and accept, the people that live in this city”.
Walter says it worked for him — and he thinks it could work almost anywhere: “So they watch my place now, and it’s just a matter of talking to the people, respecting them, and finding out where they come from”.
For the record, committee chair councillor Jason Farr never intended to create a nuisance bylaw or any bylaw at all. That may not have been the impression left with Kathy Drewitt of downtown BIA, Mary Pocius Susan Braithwaite of the International BIA or Irene Hubar of the Right House.
They expected something and they say there’s still an issue. The funny thing is that the people who hang out in front of the store agree — there is an issue. It’s what that issue is in particular and what to do about it that still isn’t clear.
(ed. note: Mary Pocius was noted in the story as the current Executive Director of the International BIA. Susan Braithwaite is the current Executive Director. CHCH regrets the error.)
