Edmonton Journal

Business areas see rise in homelessne­ss

Owners in Kingsway, Chinatown, Beverly say they feel ‘inundated’

- ELISE STOLTE estolte@edmontonjo­urnal.com twitter.com/estolte

Thousands of people have either become homeless in our city or come to our city and not found homes for various reasons.

Businesses in three areas of the city say they’ve seen a sharp spike in the numbers of aggressive homeless people frightenin­g their customers and causing stores to lock their front doors.

The executive directors for the Kingsway, Beverly and Chinatown business zones presented annual reports to the city’s executive committee Tuesday, and said it’s become a major issue for their members.

“We’re just inundated to the point where 50 per cent of my time is spent dealing with this issue,” said Beverly business revitaliza­tion zone executive director Cornel Rusnak.

Many of the people have addictions and mental health issues, he said. “They’ve refused assistance from the agencies that have been called to help them. They’re sleeping in business doorways and using the areas around businesses as a public washroom. All the banks have had to close their ATM access and businesses have had to install gates to secure their properties.

“(Customers) have complained and they’re going elsewhere. They’re just driving through.”

Rusnak said he didn’t know if Beverly is seeing people being displaced from downtown or if this is a spike in the homeless population. But he once confronted two men getting off the bus. They said they were given a bottle of water, a bus ticket and a Route #8 schedule and told to leave downtown. They couldn’t say who sent them on their way.

Officials from the Kingsway and Chinatown business revitaliza­tion zones have seen similar increases in the homeless population.

“They are new to the area. We have never seen them before and they are so aggressive. We have to do business with the doors locked,” said Ratan Lawrence, executive director for the Chinatown zone.

Kingsway has called a meeting Nov. 4 with its members to see what can be done, said Ellie Sasseville, Kingsway executive director.

“Most of them are suffering from mental health and addictions. Picking them up and taking them to the shelters is not necessaril­y the answer,” Sasseville said. “A day centre for these people — something with Internet, showers. I don’t know what the answer is, but we need to start looking at better solutions than what we have. This is maybe somewhere that the province should be called to task.”

Coun. Ben Henderson said he’s heard similar stories. “Something ’s happening, which we need to be able to understand,” he said.

Said Mayor Don Iveson: “Yes, if we re-did the homeless count today, honestly, I think we’d be up.”

After the meeting, he said he’s hoping for a clear commitment in the provincial budget to addressing the shortage of affordable and supportive housing.

“Displaceme­nt is not a solution at all. People are moving around the city for various reasons. I don’t begin to know what the dynamics are. We’re certainly hearing lots of anecdotal evidence,” Iveson said.

“We’ve housed now (roughly) 4,500 people in the last five years with an 84-per-cent success rate. The problem is thousands of people have either become homeless in our city or come to our city and not found homes for various reasons. That’s the load we bear as the big city in northern Alberta, that we need assistance with from the provincial government.”

 ?? EDMONTON JOURNAL/FILE ?? A surge of homeless people in the Kingsway, Beverly and Chinatown business areas is driving away customers, business owners say.
EDMONTON JOURNAL/FILE A surge of homeless people in the Kingsway, Beverly and Chinatown business areas is driving away customers, business owners say.

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