Something amiss in West Broadway this spring

The sound of glass shattering is unmistakable and startling. So is the sudden silence from my two boys who had been playing in the backyard.

I’d been in the kitchen, close enough to hear one shout to the other, “You call that a fastball? This is a fastball!” This explained the sudden silence from beyond the door as two stunned little boys contemplated their mortality.

Despite their terror, I’m not angry with them. They’d broken a small pane in an old plate-glass window, built in a time when all things were made to be repaired, and it will be easy to fix. They will, however, be banished to the park for future baseball endeavours.

The sound of breaking glass in West Broadway is a sign of spring for other residents, too, though.

Businesses at the corner of Sherbrook Street and Portage Avenue have raised the alarm of heightened crime. My early-morning start to the workday is also many people’s late night, and the change in that intersection is noticeable just driving through it each day. Increased break-ins, open drug use and threats of violence are impossible to ignore.

There are persistent and unruly crowds of people around the restaurants in the area, and police cars were present on three of my five workdays this week. Twice, someone has been standing alone in the street, in that familiar posture of a wilting flower swaying in the breeze.

It’s not good, and it’s not normal, not even for neighbourhoods that already live with heightened crime rates, poverty and addiction.

The business owners at Sherbrook and Portage, including the barber shop that keeps the hair out of the eyes of my resident baseball players, were profiled last week, and they agree that something is amiss in West Broadway this spring.

And it’s more than the usual spring thaw of area residents. A normal spring certainly includes a noticeable rise in disturbances in the neighbourhood. But the barber is absolutely correct — something is different this year.

There is some speculation that some of this change may be attributable to the downstream effects of the government’s Your Way Home strategy that seeks to place formerly homeless Winnipeggers into transitional housing.

This has also been suggested by the residents at several 55-plus housing complexes. Consistent conflicts have forced the WRHA to remove home-care services from at least one of the buildings, and have changed the social dynamics and sense of safety for residents.

Leaders assure us they’re working together, they’re considering all the options, but we, as citizens, have little to look at to feel like anything is going to change.

What are the various roles of the levels of government and community organizations?

What agreements for sharing responsibility and action have they come to?

What case studies or research has been consulted to address this problem?

What should we look for in order to assess progress?

The questions are endless and it seems the only answers we receive are “we’re working on it” and “more safety patrols.”

Not good enough.

Both the civic and provincial governments have published poverty-reduction strategies, highlighting their aspirations and goals for reducing poverty. These reports were found lacking, however, by members of the Social Planning Council and Make Poverty History.

A primary criticism was aimed at the narrow focus on children under five, youth aging out of care and seniors, leaving out the swaths of adults we are trying to help by moving them out of encampments and into homes, the ones wilting on Sherbrook Street and finding themselves out of place in seniors’ residences.

Where is the data and strategy for this group of Winnipeggers?

With inflation skyrocketing and even the gainfully employed feeling the pinch, poverty has increased in our city and province since the reports were published.

Is it wise, therefore, to be staying the course for another five years? Manitoba’s own data shows poverty has been trending upward since the strategy was published.

Without skilled and co-ordinated intervention, without an honest look at what is happening and who really needs help, there’s no hope for this situation to improve.

Doggedly adhering to documents that were irrelevant at the outset and now even more out of touch with reality isn’t going to return us to a healthy and integrated city where people from all walks of life feel welcome and can heal.

If we can’t shake up the status-quo procedure of turning a blind eye to our most desperate, we’ll have much more to worry about than broken windows this spring.

winnipegfreepress.com/rebeccachambers

Rebecca Chambers
Writer

Rebecca explores what it means to be a Winnipegger by layering experiences and reactions to current events upon our unique and sometimes contentious history and culture. Her column appears alternating Saturdays.

   Read full biography