WHALLEY — A fence recently erected by the City of Surrey around a vacant lot frequented by homeless people has led to an increase in crime for the Whalley Legion.
According to the legion's Robin Reid, since the city installed a fence around a nearby vacant lot down the road on 135A Street a month ago, their organization has been increasingly targeted with thefts, vandalism and aggressive panhandling.
"As they've got pushed farther and farther down our end near the legion they've gotten more and more aggressive," said Reid.
"There's an empty lot next door with a little tent city going on and people are defecating outside our front door, hiding needles everywhere and urinating on our stairs and on our cadet hall."
Other recent acts of crime at the legion include the cadet hall being broken into and all of the youth's items being stolen, someone's car being put on blocks and the tires stolen overnight and other people's tires being slashed.
"It's been an escalation for the past three weeks, more people are being directed to our area," said Reid.
Enforcement in the area is also difficult, as Reid said she's been in touch with both police and bylaw, who don't seem able to do much else other than herd the troublemakers off of private property.
"We're asked to phone the non-emergency number and police will attend, but they're always gone by the time the police get here," said Reid.
"They've also sent two bylaw officers, which moved some homeless people off of the property onto the side of the road but ten minutes later they were all back, so I don't know what the solution is. We've looked at getting cameras and putting in more lighting but unfortunately this costs money which the legion doesn't have."
Jas Rehal, Surrey's manager of bylaw, said the fence was put up in an attempt to mitigate some of the area's issues by lessening the spaces available for troublemakers.
"It's a problematic area for the city with all the activity going on there so we're always looking for solutions in the area to try and fix the problems," said Rehal.
"This lot in question was a very problematic lot with all the drug use, illegal activity going on so we tried this fence, we did that and we've had our officers increase their patrols."
Rehal went on to say that the area was a priority for the city, and "We're trying our best to usher people along and clean the streets up but it's a big problem so we're going to re-assess what we've done and take a next step. We had to try something because there was an ongoing issue."
That could go one of two ways, with either the fence being taken down on the lot under the assumption that nuisance people will return, or possibly putting up more fences around other parts in that area.
"It's been a cat and mouse game for so many years so we wanted to try something different," he said.
But for nearby business owner Pete Nichols, that isn't good enough. As owner of Whalley Printers & Stationers he said he'd like to see the city do more than just put fences up in the area.
For Nichols, he wants to know why the city allowed businesses that might attract problem individuals to cluster in the area so many years ago, leading to what it's become today.
"Why did Whalley have 10 methadone clinics, why so many junk sellers?" he asked. "Now we've got RCMP acting as babysitters, taking them away from the job they really do."
Instead, Nichols said he'd like to see the city finally take action on building resources to address the root of issues like this, such as providing homeless shelters, mental health resources and the like.
"There are far more important issues than the fence going up, and this is only going to get worse not better. We need more facilities, unfortunately."
And while the city continues to work at their own rate, the Whalley Legion - which has been a prominent establishment in Surrey for 66 years - continues to see used condoms, needles and feces left outside their doors.
Reid said veterans deserve better than this.
"We have a frail 93-year-old veteran who's sometimes afraid to walk in the door and people are out there bugging him for money," said Reid. "These are veterans, these are older people and now they have to walk through poop on their front door?"