Issues&ideas

South Van Cri

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EDITOR KURTIS GREGORY |

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Residents of Marpole, at an information session at Langara College on Nov. 2, protest the decision to construct temporary modular housing near Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Elementry School for the homeless. ATAL/A BUENDIA CALVILLO PHOTO.

Fears not justified: expert

Homeless stabilize once housed & integrated in community

=By NATALIA BUENDIA
CALVILLO

ears in the Marpole com-
munity that a new modu-
lar housing unit will bring
increased crime will be
validated only if they reject their
new neighbours, an expert says.
Once a homeless person finds
stable housing these behaviours
tend to diminish, said Martin A.
Andresen, a Simon Fraser Uni-
versity professor at the School of
Criminology.
This means residents around the
79 temporary housing units at West

57th Ave. and Heather St. — across
from Sir Wilfrid Laurier Elemen-
tary School and Ideal Mini School
— shouldn't expect a huge spike in
crime, he said.

“Generally speaking, criminal ac-
tivity and police interactions tend
to decrease as you provide housing
and social stability to people that do
not have it,” Andresen said, adding
that crime rates will also depend
on how new and old members of
the community interact with each
other.

“If the people in Marpole shut
those people off and not let them
be part of the community then it’s

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more likely that they would have a
negative impact [on the commu-
nity].”

Sally McLellan, a Marpole resi-
dent, is worried that the occupants
of the temporary housing will leave
drug paraphernalia and needles
near the school.

“It’s more of a concern for the
children, we don’t know who the
people that are going to move
here. And that’s quite disturbing,”
McLellan said.

Rob Murray, who lives seven
blocks away from the construction
site is concerned about the lack of
social support services.

20! districe pur
‘up fence
Xs and homeless adults

“The neighborhood is very light
on support services, and for peo-
ple that are coming directly from
homelessness into this transitional
housing, there is no nearby stuff for
them,” Murray said.

According to the City of Vancou-
ver website, residents wont be left
without support and will be “placed
directly into housing with support-
ive services until they can transition
to longer-term housing.”

An online petition started by
Marpole and Oakridge residents
has already gathered 1,465 signa-
tures to stop the modular housing
project.

Bouncing back from a bad year

Vancouver Fire and
Rescue change proto-
col and team up with
VPD to control arson

= By PERRIN GRAUER

ancouver Fire and Rescue

\ / Services has had to pull

out all the stops in an effort

to curb a spike in arsons in vacant
homes in 2016.

‘The Marpole, Sunset and Grand-
view-Woodland neighbourhoods
saw a doubling and even tripling
of arsons last year, many of them
in homes that were unoccupied,
contributing to the 38 vacant home
fires that Vancouver saw last year.

In an effort to get to the bottom
of the increase, fire services now
consider home fires that occur af-
ter an unlawful entry as arson and
involves the Vancouver Police De-
partment, even if the fires them-
selves are technically accidental.

“Before it became a really per-

vasive problem we would just treat
those as an accidental fire,” VFRS
spokesperson Cpt. Jonathan Gor-
mick said. “But when they started
to increase with such frequency in
2016, we began involving VPD in
the files.”

Set. Jason Robillard of the VPD
says many criminal acts can result
in unintentional arson. But police
are not yet able to provide a defini-
tive explanation for last year’s sta-
tistical spike.

“These investigations are
complex and oftentimes
we don't realize why there
was a spike or why there |
was a decrease until we |
make headway in those
investigations and we ,
follow the evidence,” &

Robillard said. ees
City officials,
meanwhile, have

been working with
VFRS to create
bylaws to help
prevent unlaw-
ful entry to va-
cant homes.

Sara Couper, communications
manager for the City of Vancouver,
says fire bylaws have been amended
to require that vacant homes be
boarded up, and that this strategy
seems to be working.

“VFRS has not seen a re-entry
into a boarded-up home since this
new standard was implemented,”
Couper said via email.

“VFRS has in fact
seen over a 50 per cent reduction in
vacant home fires this year.”

And while, as Gormick said,
“there's not one reason for it and
there's not one solution,” police, fire
and city all point towards vigilance
on behalf of residents as key to re-
ducing the potentially devastating
harm resulting from home fires.

= ana

aE,
a

Vancouver Fire and Rescue

Engine 1. PHOTO FROM: BRITISH
COLUMBIA EMERGENCY PHOTOGRAPHY

THURSDAY, NOV. 9, 2017 |

J ntrol

THE VOICE

7

Civilians
policing

Kerrisdale
community helps
keep crime down

= By JENNIFER WILSON

neighbourhoods, police point
to community engagement as
the secret to success.

Kerrisdale has one of the lowest
crime rates in Vancouver and thefts
of up to $5,000 have fallen by two
thirds this year after reaching a 12
year high in 2016, while Vancouver
as a whole has seen an increase in
property crime.

Set. Jason Robillard of the Van-
couver Police Department said in
an email that police working in
conjunction with local organiza-
tions has helped reduce crime.

“Officers assigned to community
policing in the area typically iden-
tify ‘hotspots’ for BNE [break and
enter] and thefts,” Robillard said.

Tony Bulic, executive director of
the Kerrisdale Oakridge Marpole
Community Policing Centre, said
volunteers act on this information
provided by police.

“We are not the police; we are
here as a middleman to inform the
police and be a visual deterrent and
be the eyes and ears,” Bulic said.

Robillard said crimes such as
theft are often perpetuated by the
same individual and once that per-
son is removed, the rate decreases.

“Some chronic offenders have
been responsible for a larger per-
centage of property crime. Once
they are arrested the stats will drop,”
he said. “Officers have recently
identified a few chronic offenders
in the area and had dedicated po-
lice resources to deal with specific
offenders.”

Elisha Yao, executive director of
the Chinese Community Polic-
ing Centre, said she works closely
with the Kerrisdale CPC to pro-
vide Mandarin interpretations for
residents.

According to Bulic, language
support builds trust and encour-
ages homeowners to join the block
watch program.

Robillard also said ‘target-hard-
ening’ work — making the target
tougher to access — executed by
the community policing staff is an
effective way of reducing crimes.

For instance, clipping garden
bushes and keeping items out of
view in a vehicle can go a long way,
or even placing a pair of thrift store
boots outside a door can help.

“When a thief comes up and
sees a man’s size 12 work boot he'll
think twice,” Bulic said.

S. VAN CRIME 2016

»Break and Enters
South Vancouver had 1,221 of
the city's 5,582.

| n one of Vancouver's safest

»Assaults
South Vancouver had 260 of
the city's 3,706.

»Arson
South Vancouver had 58 of the
city's 227 cases.

SOURCE: VPD STATISTICAL REPORTS