Winnipeg From The Outside

Did you watch Saturday Night Live this weekend? I did.
Did you catch Seth Meyer's Weekend Update segment? I did.
Did you hear the one about the woman who requested to finish her beer before being attended to, after being shot in the eye? I did.
Thank goodness they didn't say it happened in Winnipeg.
Normally I like the small references to Winnipeg when watching shows on TV. Every now and then a show will say something about our town, and we gush with pride, knowing we can survive weather and circumstances that others may not want to, or be able to. We are a tough bunch, and are proud of it.
But I was not proud of this last mention of our town. No, not one little bit. Someone died at that party. They were shot to death. And the person with the eye injury was harmed by that same individual.
The person mentioned in this event must have a pretty serious alcohol problem to refuse medical attention until her beer was finished. And that is no laughing matter.
When thinking about Winnipeg from the outside, another story comes to mind. The Winnipeg Sun ran an article in August regarding a fight that broke out between several people attending a party on Garfield Street. The article was written by Mark Bonokoski. I guess this incident happened on his first day in town. He was shocked by what unfolded, saying he had never wittnessed anything like it in his "many years on the police beat" in Toronto. Again, this is nothing that we should be proud of. And again, it is a sign of major alcohol problems.
A third article I would like to mention is a blog post written by one of the Winnipeg Free Press interns I had the pleasure of meeting this last summer, William Burr. He wrote the post back in September, but I did not read it until today, when a fellow independent journalist sent me the link. Thanks Marty. It is a good read, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the view of Winnipeg from the Outside.
Here are a few paragraphs of his post that I would like to highlight:

People are proud of living here. And most impressive, there’s this dynamism, heart, and sense of belonging despite a brutal crime record, part of deep desperation and poverty.

I’m grimly fascinated by the stories. People stabbed for a beer. Groups of kids in their early teens bludgeoning a lone man or woman to death. A drunken woman smashing a baby’s head on the pavement. Eighty-year-old widows robbed while paying their respects at a cemetery.

And the strangest of all, a brawl that Ian dubbed social Darwinism gone wrong, where people got into two vehicles and started smashing into one another. The 17-year-old girl at the wheel of one of the vehicles is charged with first degree murder in the death of a man who was run over. She also apparently inadvertently ran over her boyfriend’s mother.

Most people in the city just get on with their lives, despite the horrors. What else can you do?

Have we become too jaded to see the violence and alcohol problems in our city for what they are? Are we so used to the endless stories of stabbings, assaults, machette attacks, shootings, and other violent crimes that we cannot see what a violent city Winnipeg is becoming?
I checked my twitter feed today, only to see that there was a machette attack on Selkirk Ave, a stabbing on Spence, and three people arrested for their part in three assaults that took place on Sunday.
This is not how I want people to see my home town. And this is not the City I want to live in. There is too much violence, and far too many incidents tied to alcohol.
Get some help Winnipeg. You need an intervention. And you need it now.

My Fairy Tale 2012 In Winnipeg

Wouldn't it be nice to walk down my street and see well maintained houses. And wouldn't it be nice to not feel threatened by the youth on my street. Wouldn't it be nice to go two weeks without seeing police cars on the street. Wouldn't it be nice to no longer hear about stabbings, shooting and gang violence. Wouldn't it be great to have the gang houses actually closed down. Wouldn't it be great to see kids on bikes going to the park to play instead of delivering drugs?
Could you imagine a day when the criminals of our city are picked up and put in jail? What would my North End be like if the gangs were shut down?
I don't understand why it is so difficult to remove gang graffiti. The removal of the graffiti would be a start. But it is caught in red tape.
I don't understand why it is so difficult to close a gang house. The police know where they are, and know who comes and goes from the houses. If they are identified as gang houses, shut them down.
I don't understand why it is so difficult to stop known houses from dealing drugs. When they are identified, reported to the police and Safer Communities, it takes months / years for investigations to begin. And when they do actually get investigated, issues are only dealt with if the person dealing is on the lease. And if that happens the people are asked to move. Then they just move next door or the next street over. How is that helping anything? How does that make a community safer? It doesn't.
I don't understand why bad behaviour is allowed to continue in lower income communities. That just encourages even worse behaviour.
Wouldn't it be great if criminals were charged with crimes?
Wouldn't it be great if by-laws were enforced?
Wouldn't it be great if illegal garbage dumpers were prosecuted?
Wouldn't it be great if the North End was a valued community in Winnipeg?
And wouldn't it be great if we stopped saying "it is just the North End" and "what do you expect".
Wouldn't it be great if we expected better.

It's A New Year, Winnipeg

We are starting a new year, which is generally a time for hope, a time for resolutions, and a time for change.

Last year Winnipeg was met with 39 homicides, the last one happening on the very last day of the year. Apparently there were shots fired on Selkirk Ave and two went to hospital. One did not survive.

Violence spilled over into 2012, with our first day showing a variety of incidences. There were shots fired in the in the 400 block of Aberdeen Avenue. A couple of fires on Government Ave and Corydon Ave happened overnight and are under investigation. There was also a stabbing on Kennedy Street to round off the day.

What are we to do about all of this crime and violence that seems to be taking over our City?
Really, what are we to do?

If we followed the lead of City Hall, Mayor Katz, and those in charge of informing us of crimes, we could simply brush it all under the rug. We could adjust the information given to the public, adjust what the media reports on, and adjust the stats collected. We could have a City where our Mayor proudly proclaims that our Downtown is safe and we need not fear our streets. We could have a City where the Crime Stats show no violent acts. Simply remove the homicides and shootings from the listings, just as the arsons, assaults, and stabbings are missing from public view.

We could run our City like George Orwell's 1984, where words dissapear from dictionaries. We could have a City where everyone turns a blind eye to crime, just as long as it is not in the more affluent areas of town, and remove it from our thoughts completely.

Winnipeg is a great place to be in 2012. We have our hockey team back. We are building a fancy rapid transit corridor. We have a Human Rights Museum being built. We have a new football stadium hopefully opening this year. What a great City. All we have to do is erase the fact that violence is taking over our City. Just scrub away a few more statistics, and we will have that great City we know Winnipeg can be.

Lie to me baby, and tell me the North End of Winnipeg is a safe place to be.

The Roof Continues To Fall

What would you do if you saw a roof caving in on a house? What would you do if you saw an older gentleman at the house? Would you tell someone? Would you be concerned for the well being of the individual? Or would you just walk on by?
Well, I didn't just walk on by. I reported the house to the City. I took a picture of the house with the roof caving in, and I sent it to 311. That was on April 27, 2011. I wrote about this house back on July 21, including an update from the City Planning office. I was told the owner had until the end of September to tear down the back extention of the house or the City would do it themselves.
Then I did an update article on October 3, showing the roof was still falling in on itself. I guess the City Planning office did not follow through on tearing down the back extention of the house.
Yesterday I drove down the lane to find the roof is still falling in on itself. The back extention is still attached to the house. But the house is painted. At least the portions of the house that are to remain intact.

So, why is the roof still caving in? And why is the back extention still connected to the house? This issue was reported by me on April 27 of this year, and the owner had until the end of September to deal with it.

If I have my information correct, the City Planning and the By-Laws people do not have a mechanism for follow-up. They don't have a system of notification when a deadline comes due. And I guess they are busy dealing with new issues.

That means this person doesn't really have to do anything about their house. Nobody is going to check on it. Not unless some citizen contacts 311 to let them know there is something wrong.

You would think they could set up a filing system, or make a spreadsheet to notify themselves of deadlines that may come up. But why bother. The system is complaint driven, and if people don't complain, nothing gets done. Maybe I haven't complained at enough of the proper time intervals to have this issue taken care of. Or maybe there is nothing actually wrong.

More tax dollars paying more City workers, so nothing happens here.