Residents living around Danbrook Park say they are fed up with the crime and open drug use associated with shelter encampments in the downtown Langford park.
“I live across the street and the police are there constantly … if it’s not the police, it’s the ambulance, fire trucks,” Barb Priddy, a resident of Massie Drive, told Langford council.
Priddy said she and her husband have had to disconnect their outdoor power outlets because people living in the park are coming over and “stealing our power to charge their cellphones, scooters. I should not have to live like that.
“It wears on you and something needs to be done … I don’t know what, but they need to be out of there.”
A stream of residents stressed to council their concerns about safety — not only in the evening hours but all day long — as they walk their children to school or take their pets to the off-leash area of Danbrook Park.
A woman who lives on Goldstream Avenue said she used to visit the park twice a day to walk her two dogs, but now hardly ever goes there.
“The reason I don’t go there is I don’t feel safe in the park,” she said. “I tried going there today, but there were five people along the fence. They were all not in their right minds. They were all on drugs.”
Several of the residents said a decision to split off a section of the park for off-leash dog area last fall was an open invitation for sheltering.
Darren Peck has lived at Massie Close directly across from Danbrook Park for 14 years and “sees everything that happens there.
“The first 13 years were great. My family and I loved living there … it’s no longer the case,” said Peck.
“We don’t like it there any more and it’s a direct result of the encampment there. Selling our house is not a good option now. We would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars with an encampment directly across the street from our home.”
Peck said partitioning the park into two areas was initially described as a neighbourhood improvement. “None of us feel that way now.”
He said a simple solution would be to install a playground “and that would allow you to remove them,” said Peck. “A playground would give us our park back and make us feel safe in our neighbourhood.”
Council was hearing concerns as it considered policing priorities for West Shore RCMP, and it comes on the heels of police releasing data that showed overall crime in the region increased 17% in the first six months of 2023 versus the same period a year ago.
The West Shore detachment covers Langford, Metchosin, View Royal, Colwood, Highlands and the Esquimalt First Nation.
In Langford, crime reports shot up 19% with 7,490 incidents in the first half of 2023, compared with 6,300 over the same period in 2022. Property crimes surged 36%, from 811 in 2022 to 1,100 this year.
Mike Morton, who lives on Phelps Avenue, said council should follow Campbell River which has banned open drug use. “Why doesn’t this council consider the same?” he said.
He said several neighbours are living in fear.
Morton said councillors should personally visit Danbrook at midnight and see what it’s like.” Go see what these people have to contend with because they deserve better.”
Bernadette Armstrong said Danbrook isn’t the only encampment in Langford, noting thefts, drug use and mental health incidents are also prevalent at Veteran Memorial Park and along Goldstream Avenue and Leigh Road. She said council should consider bylaws banning camping in parks.
She credits RCMP for the work they do, but acknowledged they are “stretched thin.”
Coun. Keith Yacucha said Langford’s Community Advisory Board hashed out policing priorities in late July and asked that council direct West Shore RCMP to prioritize several areas of policing for the remainder of 2023, among them mental health, youth issues, road safety, serious organized crime and drug trafficking, visibility of police, and a focus on Indigenous youth.
Yacucha said what Danbrook area residents are experiencing is “problematic” and it is happening across the region, province and country.
“We’re not alone in this,” he said. “It may not be anything we’ve done as municipality that’s brought us here, but at the end of the day we’re the ones holding the ball; we’re the ones compelled to act.
Coun. Mary Wagner said three new RCMP officers will help to create a new mental heath unit that will address the Danbrook Park issues. She said Danbrook Park “is top of mind for council and we’re taking it very seriously.”
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