Frustration is building
Owner of historic Galt Manor has seen building overrun by drug users
In a southside apartment complex, building owner Douglas Cutler watches as drug addicts in the alley circle around, make small talk and watch the building. They are waiting for the building’s lone sentinel to leave so they can gain access to it.
Historic Galt Manor, located at 527 7 St. S., is a building under siege by drug addicts haunting the downtown core.
The property was highlighted at the Lethbridge Police Commission meeting in September for experiencing increased and significant drug activity. It is located in an area heavily frequented by addicts, in the blocks just west of the public library.
On this day, Cutler is repairing a door to one of the units which was recently broken into.
A previous tenant had vacated the premises, and within two days a couple of addicts were squatting there, sleeping on the floor and using drugs. There was no heat on in the unit, so they turned up the oven and let it run with the door open.
After Cutler found them and kicked them out, he found needles in the kitchen and scattered around the bathroom. He found more throughout the apartment.
He makes daily rounds on the property and collects the paraphernalia as best he can. In most cases, they are remnants of safeinjection packages prepared by local outreach groups. Needles, spoons, cotton swabs and water packs.
When Cutler looks out the back of the building, the lone addict has been joined by at least four more people in a pickup truck.
“They are going to break me,” Cutler says.
Cutler has owned the property for seven years. He moved to Lethbridge from Coalhurst after retiring and, being a previous property owner, he decided to make the apartment complex part of the retirement plans he shared with his wife.
“This was a nurses’ residence for the Galt hospital,” Cutler says. “This is why you have all these single-bed apartments.
“My idea was this put all my problems in one spot, nice and easy to look after.”
About eight months ago, things started to sour in the building. He lost three long-term tenants in short order.
Some of the new tenants were directed from outreach programs. It was a mixed bag.
“There was a few bad eggs, but we got rid of them,” Cutler says. “Lately, though, it’s probably jumped up to 60 or 70 per cent.”
In spite of his ongoing efforts to keep non-residents out of the building, tenants living on the bottom floors are intimidated into opening the doors and letting them in.
“They come, tap-tap, and the door opens,” he says. “They hang around like flies in the summer.”
He knows drugs are being dealt in the building, but is limited in what he can do.
In September, a raid on an apartment by the City’s K-9 and Downtown Policing Unit netted about $5,000 worth of methamphetamine.
Cutler said the bust did nothing to stem the tide of addicts coming through. He has found them squirrelled away in every conceivable space in the building.
“I’ve had them go down and break into storage lockers to sleep in those,” he said.
Some no longer care if they are hidden away from sight. Cutler arrived one morning to find a man sleeping in a stolen chair in the backyard with his drug paraphrenia scattered around.
“A certain group don’t care how exposed they are,” he says. “They’ll shit right there in the alley. It doesn’t matter to them.”
And he has lost count the number of bicycles which have shown up.
“They just leave bikes here,” he says. “They are one-way transportation.”
Recently, Cutler started finding graffiti on the walls. He points to one that said “CRIPS RUN SHIT HERE.” The words are meaningless to Cutler.
“I don’t know if that means this is a drug house, or what,” he says.
When told the graffiti is referencing a dangerous street gang, he just nods his head. It’s one more brick added to the load of problems he carries around with him.
Cutler often hears from people who tell him to kick problem tenants out. But so many would have to be evicted that he would not be able to cover his mortgage payments. He feels trapped in a cycle.
“The regular paying tenants move out,” he says. “They can’t take it. It’s only the subsidized ones I have now, from the government. And they can be slow with payments, too. I can’t cover it.”
“It’s discouraging,” he adds. “Mostly my wife won’t come here. But she knows I’m getting wound up.”
He recalled a recent incident when he had to remove a young man sleeping in the hallway.
“I’m getting so discouraged and mad,” he says.
“It’s so hard to give anybody else a chance.
It is this fundamental shift occurring within Cutler that most visibly affects him. When a young woman walks by and says hello, Cutler responds in kind but watches her carefully as she leaves the building. The woman is not a resident. But she came out of an apartment with people Cutler has high hopes for.
“But that’s just it,” he says, explaining his thought process. “I’m suspicious of everybody. And I hate who I’m becoming over it.”
“I just stay here as long as I can during the day. And my wife stays away as much as possible. It’s a great retirement," he says with sarcasm.
Two more addicts show up at the front door, and finding it locked, one goes around the side of the house to get someone's attention. The other picks at her hand and nearly falls off the steps.
“I’m pretty discouraged with Lethbridge,” Cutler says, watching them.
He believes in spite of the focus on programming for drug addicts, the reality of the problem is not being seen.
“It's an ongoing battle,” he says. Watching the woman outside, asleep on her feet, he repeats himself. Only this time, it's slower, and with more sadness.