Dog feces vandalism shuts down food pantry

A few shelves set up beneath a West End community notice board were meant to offer a place where neighbours could leave food for anyone who needed it.

But now its been shut down after someone smeared dog feces on it.

Kyle Wiebe, co-chair of the South Valour Residents Association, believed the food pantry at Denson/Riddle Park was also a way to make the neighbourhood safer. He hoped helping people meet their basic needs could strengthen connections between those who live in the area, including nearby encampment residents.

Wiebe says he suspects an angry resident, opposed to the pantry was responsible for the vandalism, that was discovered on Aug. 24.

“I don’t think someone from the encampment would have done it,” Wiebe said. “They were the ones using it.”

The idea of a pantry originates from a 2021 community survey. Of roughly 174 respondents, about 45 per cent identified food security as something they wanted the association to focus on, Wiebe said.

Work with an urban studies researcher at the University of Winnipeg later helped the association explore ways a small, volunteer-run organization could improve community safety. Connecting neighbours, addressing hunger and improving green spaces emerged as approaches worth pursuing.

Installed over the summer, the pantry was intended as a small way for people to help others living within a few blocks of their homes.

“This project was a meaningful one,” Wiebe said.

But Wiebe says the pantry wasn’t welcome by all and backlash was immediate.

He said he understands there are competing ideas in the neighbourhood about what makes a neighbourhood safe: meeting the needs of people who are struggling, or addressing the conditions that some nearby residents say have made a public park difficult to use.

At a meeting organized by city Coun. Cindy Gilroy, Wiebe said residents yelled at him and the association’s other co-chair as they tried to explain the initiative.

Gilroy did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Wiebe says he understands residents’ safety concerns. He heard accounts of aggressive behaviour and alleged illegal activity around the encampments, and does not dismiss people’s fears.

What troubles him is the response to community volunteers and the belief that the pantry was responsible for problems much larger than the association could address.

Frank Winkler, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 33 years, has opposed the pantry because of concerns it would encourage people from nearby encampments to stay.

Winkler described makeshift shelters, accumulated belongings littering Denson/Riddle Park and concerns about fires and discarded needles. His wife stopped using the footbridge toward Polo Park because she feared being accosted.

He recalls watching one person in the park build what he described as a two-storey structure from wooden pallets, covered with a white tarp. Neighbours nicknamed it the ‘white house.’

Although Winkler disagreed with the pantry, he said he rejects the vandalism.

The park’s encampments were cleared by the city this fall, which brought relief to Winkler, but he expects the issue to return. Both the park and pantry were empty Thursday morning.

For Wiebe, the vandalism has him questioning whether to pursue further improvements to the park or if he will move the pantry to another location. He feels the experience has made the work of a small non-profit feel harder to sustain.

Other association projects, including tree planting, had been positively received. The pantry had support from the association’s board and committee, he said, but he supplied much of the energy behind it.

Now, he is unsure if he wants to lead efforts to find the pantry a new, less controversial home.

kelly.riess@winnipegfreepress.com