Cleanup shows community pride

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This article was published 07/05/2023 (854 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Armed with garbage pickers, plastic bags and gloves, more than 100 volunteers converged on Winnipeg’s inner city Saturday, in a co-ordinated attempt to clean up several North End neighbourhoods.

The effort was a demonstration of community pride, but also an act of desperation, organizers and volunteers said.

“We’re sick of the garbage. Really sick of the garbage. If our kids have to play and be out here on the streets, I at least want it to be safe,” said Heather Markus, a volunteer from the North Point Douglas neighbourhood.

“We already have a bottle full of needles that we’ve found. That’s just really shocking and disgusting.”

After roughly an hour of collecting, Markus and Kristie Norberg took a break on a bench near the Norquay Community Centre at 65 Granville St. Both women moved to the area around January and said they are shocked at the filth revealed by the spring thaw.

“We don’t understand why this has happened. Where is the pride from other homeowners?” Norberg said. “There’s a lot of apathy, and it’s sad to see.”

The frustration felt by Markus and Norberg is emblematic of a larger problem in the neighbourhood, which — despite being home to only around 2,000 people, according to census data — is completely overwhelmed with waste.

“People basically treat this neighbourhood as a dumping ground,” said Catherine Flynn, acting chair of the Point Douglas Residents’ Association.

“I find that profoundly disrespectful.”

Flynn has lived in the area for roughly a decade. She and the other members of the association host annual cleanups to combat the ever-growing piles of garbage that collect in the neighbourhood’s gutters, alleys and vacant lots.

It’s a losing battle. The level of waste they are dealing with goes beyond what any community effort could be expected to address.

Last year, the group filled seven, industrial-sized garbage bins in the area between the Redwood and Louise Bridges. Each bin was capable of holding around 7,000 lbs, she said.

“We have construction garbage, we have people leaving furniture, we have found the remains of entire apartment suites, clothing — we even found an entire load of dirty diapers,” Flynn said. “We need additional support.”

The problem is exacerbated by overlapping socio-economic challenges afflicting many who live in the community, said Christine Kirouac, a member of the Point Douglas Environment Committee.

“We have addictions, we have encampments, we have homeless people, theft and fires that are encroaching on us on all sides,” Kirouac said. “It’s creating an intense amount of stress and people are feeling completely powerless.”

Staff from Manitoba Hydro and several local businesses partnered to assist in this year’s cleanup, offering aid in the form of trucks, labour and food. Take Pride Winnipeg provided bags and garbage pickers.

Flynn and Kirouac are grateful for the support, but hope further reinforcements will come from higher-ups within the City of Winnipeg.

They are asking for the city to impose additional fines and install surveillance cameras to catch people illegally dumping in the area. They also want bylaw officers to crack down on enforcement of infractions, which they say are often overlooked in Point Douglas.

In the summer, the area around the Red River is overrun with active and abandoned encampments, becoming the source of countless fires and safety hazards, Kirouac said.

“The side-effects of (the homeless population) are becoming untenable. We are a compassionate community, but the pendulum has swung too far and we have to consider the health of everybody… It’s becoming unsafe and derelict,” she said.

She and others are meeting with Mayor Scott Gillingham later this month. They hope he will have an answer to the neighbourhood’s demands, she said.

Elsewhere in the city, other community cleanups were also underway.

The North End Residents’ Coalition co-ordinated cleaning efforts with groups in the William Whyte, Luxton, St. John’s, Inkster and North End neighbourhoods.

Ukrainian refugees Ivan Partsei and Vasylyna Kobuta helped organize one such initiative. The married couple, who arrived in Manitoba last August, wanted to give back to their new community, they said.

Together, they rallied roughly 100 people who scoured the area surrounding Saint John’s Park on Main Street.

Tom Ethans, executive director of Take Pride, estimates more than 14,000 children and adults have participated in similar cleanups dating since March.

Back in North Point Douglas, Markus and Norberg said they hope their efforts are not in vain.

“We want people to see what we are doing and take note of it. If you don’t acknowledge that there is a problem, your not going to do anything to change the problem,” Markus said.

“Hopefully once other people see us cleaning, that will bring it out in them,” Norberg added. “Either you’re going to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. We just chose to be part of the solution.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca