‘What would Jesus do?’
Victoria church under fire after erecting wall
Fed up with the drug dealing and other “undesirable activities” near their front doors, officials at Central Baptist Church in downtown Victoria installed a 50-foot-long short concrete wall and topped it with a four-foot high black metal fence.
But what they thought was a necessary safety measure — other buildings in the area feature similar fencing — has turned into a public relations battle, with some residents accusing church leaders of turning their backs on the city’s most vulnerable citizens.
The backlash culminated just before Christmas in an act of vandalism: “HATEGATE?” and “#WWJD” ( What Would Jesus Do?) were spraypainted in black across the wall.
The pastor and a member of the church’s board insisted in interviews they have not given up on the street community and have every intention of continuing to reach out to their disadvantaged neighbours.
“We could easily sell our property and move somewhere else and build a nice, shiny building in the suburbs,” said Rev. Barton Priebe, the lead pastor. “But we’re choosing to stay as part of this area.”
The church is located in a neighbourhood dotted with organizations providing support for the homeless, drug-addicted and working poor. Earlier this year, a large brick building next to the church that used to be a seniors care home was converted into housing units for those who had been evicted from Victoria’s sprawling tent city. The local health authority has now proposed installing a supervised injection site inside the building.
Priebe said the church welcomed their new neighbours with a chili dinner and that church members routinely volunteer their time with community organizations that serve hot meals and provide other support for marginalized groups.
“As Christians, we believe we’re called to pour ourselves out for the good of the city,” Priebe said.
But over the years, the frequency of the drug selling and using in a covered area in front of the church worsened to the point where they felt they had to take action, Priebe said.
“It’s a daily cleanup of graffiti, urine, vomit, needles, garbage. Drug users are constantly picking away at the ground trying to get tiny pieces of drugs. Just about anything you can imagine we clean it up.”
After consulting with police and knowing it couldn’t afford full-time security, the church settled on the wall and “decorative fence” solution and submitted a permit application to City Hall in July.
The application noted that some parents had removed their children from Friday youth nights, while other church members had left altogether “sensing a lack of safety and security.”
Loiterers have become a noticeably “younger and rougher male crowd,” the application said. On one occasion, a temporary security guard was assaulted and hit with a beer can when he confronted a couple of loiterers.
The additional concentration of former tent-city residents next door will “likely increase the loitering and possible undesirable activities,” the application read.
The city approved the proposal in November (with an amendment to make the fence’s railheads more pointed as opposed to rounded to prevent “vaulting”) and the construction got underway last month. But before the concrete had dried on the retaining wall, the backlash on various news and social media sites had begun.
“Way to shut the door on those seeking shelter at Christmas,” one person wrote.
“It would be better to be building relationships with these people instead of locking them out!” wrote another.
Rev. Al Tysick of the Dandelion Society, which advocates for the area’s homeless, told a local television station the church had misspent its money. “The role of that church was leadership towards justice, not building a wall,” Tysick said.
“That church could have led all of the other churches, our community and our city to other solutions. It would have been a harder, longer process, but they could have done that.”
Others, however, said they understood the church’s decision.
“I think the church is in a difficult position because their (front) steps were really an area for drug dealing,” said Grant McKenzie, a spokesman for Our Place Society, which provides meals, showers and counselling for homeless. “We completely understand why they would go to this measure.”
Of course, the drug activity will likely be shuffled to someone else’s doorstep, he said, but that speaks to the broader problem of lack of mental health and addiction resources in the community.
“It’s almost like they’re leaving it up to not-for-profits and churches to take care of all these people … instead of the health-care system and the housing system.”
Church board member Monty Crisp, who has been behind much of the planning, said he knew the optics of the fence weren’t great but never expected it to generate so much controversy.
Crisp said there are plans to install evergreen shrubs and plants, perhaps Japanese maple, behind the fence and hanging baskets along the fence to make the area more attractive.