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VicPD, province negotiating tent city policing costs

Victoria police are negotiating with the province to pay for a pair of police officers at the courthouse tent city during peak trouble hours or around the clock — in addition to officers who already visit the site several times daily.
Victoria Stabbing 2015122_2.jpg
Police interview a resident of a section of Victoria's downtown homeless camp in December after a stabbing was reported.

Victoria police are negotiating with the province to pay for a pair of police officers at the courthouse tent city during peak trouble hours or around the clock — in addition to officers who already visit the site several times daily.

The talks began about three weeks ago, said Insp. Scott McGregor, based on calls for greater police presence from nearby homeowners as well as campers concerned about their own safety amid drug dealing and associated violence.

The negotiations are not to hire two more people, he said. “It’s just to cover costs of deploying resources there on a permanent basis.”

McGregor could not estimate the cost involved and said police would not necessarily start with a 24-hour presence. “It might be a reduced time period based on when we get peak calls to the site. … We’re still in the middle of talking about that.”

Two officers, Const. Dan O’Connor and Staff Sgt. Colin Brown, already liaise with the campers to ensure that safety concerns are addressed via a safety committee struck with representatives from the Victoria Fire Department, the province and service providers.

O’Connor spends all his time with tent-city issues, while Brown spends about 80 per cent of his time on the issues, such as dealing with services providers or calls from neighbours. But neither officer spends the major part of his time at the site.

Even before the community asked for a permanent police presence at the site, police had decided to beef up resources in the area, McGregor said. “But our problem is this: For us to deploy resources there on a permanent basis, puts us in a very difficult position as far as resourcing is concerned.”

The Victoria-Esquimalt police budget is $50.3 million. The department employs 247 officers and about 100 civilian employees.

From November to April, calls for police services increased 46 per cent — to 760 from 521 — from the same period the previous year in the three blocks centred on the tent city.

That’s compared with a 3.6 per cent increase across Victoria and Esquimalt — to 18,735 from 18,082 — for the same time period.

Stephen Hammond, spokesman for a neighbourhood group formed in opposition to the tent city, called Mad As Hell Victoria, said a 24-7 police presence is needed in the area and “every penny should be paid for by the province. … They were the ones who allowed it to happen, so they should be paying for it.”

Hammond said the rest of Victoria should not have to forgo police presence to pay for the “lawlessness” spilling out from the tent city.

Among the steps police, the province and service providers say they are taking to improve security in and around tent city:

• Two police officers, Const. Dan O’Connor and Staff Sgt. Colin Brown, spend much of their time dealing with the encampment and issues related to it, including daily visits to the camp at Burdett and Quadra streets.

• Other officers are on increased patrols within a two-block area of the park, including random drop-ins four times every 24 hours — twice during the day and twice overnight, McGregor said.

• Staff from Vancouver’s Portland Hotel Society, hired by the province to engage with tent city residents since April 14, have two to three workers on the site seven days a week between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., helping individuals with supplies and taking them to appointments.

• The Victoria Cool-Aid Society has hired a security guard from 7 a.m. until midnight each day, something neighbours requested.

• Crime-watch volunteers and reserve officers patrol the area, reminding drivers via flyers on windshields not to leave valuables in their vehicles.

“My experience with the people I’ve talked to there, and the circumstances that I’m aware of there, most people really just want housing,” said McGregor, who has been a frequent visitor. Some people have mental-health issues, some have addiction issues, some have both and some have neither, he said. “But I can tell you there’s a lot of very destitute people there.”

In a homeless count in the capital region during a 12-hour period on Feb. 10, the federal government found 1,387 people were homeless. The count included those living in emergency shelters, transitional housing and out-of-doors.

kdedyna@timescolonist.com