Out of sight, out of mind, out of hope

It was with no surprise that I read of the unfortunate stabbing of a beer vendor employee in my neighbourhood last week. Just three days after that, there was a big brawl in the vendor’s parking lot, replete with multiple emergency responders.

We know our city has problems — drugs, poverty, crime, infrastructure (oof, Graham Avenue). So it’s unsurprising, if not discouraging, that West Broadway isn’t turning a corner in terms of reflecting these issues. But it is somewhat of a surprise our city councillor continues to be silent on it, especially with an election looming.

Recently, the Free Press published alarming statistics about homelessness in our city, and noted the top two wards for encampment populations. In first place, we have Point Douglas, home to urban missions, outreach organizations and ample secluded stretches of riverbank — all amenities needed by folks struggling with addiction, poverty and homelessness.

In second place, we have the head-scratching locale of Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry. This might cause one to wonder what on earth is going on in these neighbourhoods, considering we don’t generally view them as high-crime areas and certainly not as parts of the city struggling with poverty.

What might we be missing in the fine details as to why this ward ranks so highly in homelessness and crime? The ward name itself is misleading, because a neighbourhood that’s part of the riding, but not named — West Broadway — is in a continual state of crisis.

Universally, news that we’re part of Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry is met with comic bewilderment. I know, right? No one knows we exist! Not even our city councillor, it would seem! We are a place upon which to close your eyes to, to avoid, to ignore.

There are chicken-and-egg conversations about areas on which candidates focus their energy and attention during a campaign. Resources are finite, and wards are enormous and difficult to fully cover.

The general practice is to concentrate one’s efforts on areas that yield the most votes, and that ain’t West Broadway. (In reality, this isn’t really anywhere in Winnipeg, with voter turnout a sad 37.5 per cent across the city in the 2022 election.) Surely this will further focus efforts of candidates on so-called high-yield areas of their wards.

I can certainly say civic election canvassers have not found us in the eight years Coun. Sherri Rollins has been representing Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry.

Maybe we’ve just missed them, somehow, for eight years running, but provincial candidates seem to have no trouble finding our address (despite, again, having our riding named for a different neighbourhood). Even the feds seem able to brave the mean streets of West Broadway in pursuit of a vote.

That Rollins doesn’t spend time here was made extra-clear by the fact she petitioned the mayor for a special meeting regarding Winnipeg’s drug crisis just last month, having participated in a Main Street Project ride-along during which she witnessed “piles of people” in crisis.

I do not need a ride-along to see the same sights. I merely need to look out my window — in the ward she represents. Or doesn’t, really.

I haven’t read any quotes from Rollins about a commitment to improving our neighbourhood. I haven’t seen her send condolences to people affected by violence, nor spotted her touring the neighbourhood and speaking to any of us to try to understand what’s needed here.

The fact she only acknowledged some urgency regarding the drug crisis after witnessing it from a chaperoned vehicle ride makes me feel our current ward name is entirely fitting in terms of the omission of our existence.

With the general apathy Winnipeggers seem to have for the civic election this fall (including the mayor, who has yet to release a platform), I’m finding it difficult to cling to faint hope that change is coming for our city as a whole, and that instead, even the very people making the rules have relegated some of us to an existence essentially without representation, and without hope.

winnipegfreepress.com/rebeccachambers