A Rutland homeowner says he has removed trees and other vegetation from his property in an effort to discourage people from using his yard as a place to hide, store belongings and use drugs.
Kris Hyam says he regularly found items including clothing, tin foil, glass and drug paraphernalia on his property.
“Having someone in your yard who is not invited is extremely aggravating. It feels like a violation,” Hyam said.
Hyam decided to remove much of the privacy around his front yard. He says the work took three full weekends and cost about $600 for a roll-off bin, including delivery, pickup and disposal.
“The goal was to get rid of all privacy in the front yard,” he said.
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Hyam says people experiencing homelessness had been leaving belongings on his property, along with needles and used crack pipes.
He believes the location of his home contributes to the activity, pointing to nearby Lions Park and a welfare office.
“They are constantly being fed at the park every day. And there is a welfare office a football throw from my house,” Hyam said.
But organizations serving people experiencing homelessness say there are alternatives for people who need somewhere to keep their belongings.
Samuel Bradbury, a staff member at Metro Central, says the organization offers 24-hour storage, allowing people experiencing housing insecurity to safely leave their belongings overnight and retrieve them the following day.
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“They will know it will be OK, we also have a long term storage that is 20$ a month. The daily storage is free,” Bradbury said.
Hyam says he believes removing the trees has made a difference.
“We think it has helped. We have noticed that homeless people seem to walk past our house now,” he said.
Still, Hyam says the situation has left him considering leaving the neighbourhood.
“I can’t keep living like this. I don’t want to keep raising my daughter around this,” he said.
His hope, he says, is to eventually move somewhere he considers safer and more welcoming for his family.
You know what would solve this problem? Let’s reach out and get some of those Korean shop owners that were in LA in 1992. Post them up all over town and watch the issue disappear.
Where’s the cops what’s really going on? He should have called a few neighbors over to help him. Unreal where we at.
The more toxic drugs the better!
Why not just set some landmines?
I have lived in Kelowna for 40 years and it is just getting worse. It is long past time to admit that the carrot does not work for everyone.
If someone wants to get clean, to fix their life and start becoming a contributing member of the world, help them. Let’s get them in to treatment and work with them.
If they don’t want that, round them all up, head out to the Queen Charlotte islands and drop them all on one. No more fent zombies around town, no more break ins, no more piles of garbage all over the place.
I live about a block away from a homeless encampment operated by our city… There’s about 50 sheds and a trailer with showers and food… They get everything for free and the budget is about a million dollars a year… A million dollars a year of our property taxes…. And EVERY NIGHT AND DAY we get these same homeless drug addicts checking everyone’s cars and front doors and sometimes even back doors… You have to constantly lock your house and car at all hours or the day… Theyll just casually walk down the street checking every car door in the middle of the day, we got new neighbours and their car got broken into twice in the first week, now they know to lock up. It’s absolutely disgusting that these drug addicts are taking a free shed free food and free showers from a million dollar annual budget and STILL break into houses and cars every single day…4yrs ago they stole a backpack full of diapers and kids toys out of my neighbors car… And then we found all the diapers and toys thrown all over the street down the road…. Police have been called multiple times… Dozens of times probably… These drug addicts have no respect and they’re ungrateful and they seriously need hard jail time… Like… Years for breaking and entering, theft, and drug possession… I don’t know why they have any freedom… Our country is sick…. Build an electric barbwire fence around this encampment don’t let them leave and call it a day… A million dollar annual budget… It should make everyone sick to hear this
Ironically Tim Hortons, banks industries lobby government mass immigration, subsidy programs.
That should be your reason to avoid these places.
If you can’t be a productive, contributing member of society then you should be taken out of society. Plain and simple. Enabling isn’t good for the homeless or society. Anything else is excuses so spare the bleeding hearts. Us hard working tax payers have compassion fatigue. We’ve ALL faced tough times but CHOSE to rise above them NOT walk around in a drug haze. They’re already dead.
I retired in Kelowna a year ago and own a home in Rutland. I have quit visiting Tim Horton’s and Mcdonald’s and various other businesses along Hiway 33 because of the homelessness. When is society going to stop making excuses for these people? I have been cussed out, spit on for simply trying to use businesses and being accosted. Vagrancy used to be a crime. What about MY RIGHTS! These people need to be institutionalized or incarcerated. Why should this man not feel safe in his own home? Why should he have to move?
I’m organizing a purge on all homeless junkies.
We had that and when called to reinforce bylaws the City suggested that I “should be more compassionate” I in turned suggested she give me her address and I could drive this person and her needles and garbage to her lawn…..since she was obviously more compassionate than I. Back in the hippie days you couldn’t even linger on someone’s private space like their lawn without being moved along.
It’s a sad state of affairs when a home owner / taxpayer has to cut down his trees and bushes that provided privacy to stop homeless people using his yard and leaving garbage around. It’s seems the homeless have more rights than taxpayers these days they camp where they want and when they move it costs taxpayers thousands of dollars to clean up the mess they leave. This NDP government is totally useless
Stop torturing the English language- they are homeless
I would spread chicken manure on the grass surrounding my property to freshen things up where the trees were removed
@ Terry MacKay, sorry, each of them made the decision to go down that road. Where has it gotten us to ignore that. The government has been the biggest drug enablers, once providing them with clean drugs and needles – FREE. Diabetics don’t get their needles for free. The entire situation makes me sick and at the same time I feel they are nothing but annoying and a huge nuissance.
@ Time to Speak Up – my god, that was a rough read. Not because of the subject, but spelling, lack of grammar punctuation. I’m exhausted reading this long winded comment. Off to have a nap now.
“Time to speak up ! Wanna put a innocent man in jail! I’m coming with the evidence”
LOL what are you talking about bro. You really need to put down that meth pipe. Apparently it’s rotting your brain and making you write short stories on the internet that make zero sense. I know growing up in the trailer park was difficult but you gotta lay off that shlt ASAP
🤣🤣
You got to admit his yard actually looks better now. Plus now you can hose down the degenerates while they are under the branches.
First of all these homeless people are there because the sytem continues to be sneaky inside the syrem and create this mess fir them. People look a little deeper into our Justice sytem and how they keep this sick little game running like a revolving door for there cash flow. Just talk to someone that has even 5 days inside these correctional facilities. They keep it running like a meat market in and out and back on the streets so guess what? Until people start standing up for the minor people that have no choice but crime ! I’m not talking murders or people that harm children i’m talking about your own family’s/ wife/ husbands, setting you up with the Crown on arrests a year later. 10 years in after they keep you down with finances you have no choice to miss a trial because the legal aid sytem has lawyers that are there to put you away! Even if they are a defence lawyer. Corruption in our Goverment, legal sytem and Justice sytem. Maybe people need to stand up and help these guys rhat are setting up there own games within and you would not have people ripped out of there homes, locked away with 23 hr lock down and theyvtake there rights away from trying to find a lawyer. I got people they are telling me whats going on in there. You people just are nit allowed to see it with there big retaining walls so the abuse inside these correctional units like the OCC. Giving them portions of food big enough to feed a child! A child people ! Then the government comes back and says well last year it was $200 a day to keep these guys in jail after they denied bail 3 times for people that have done bail check in every month or week . Been good citizens, not trouble at all, lived in supportive houseing units for 3.5 years with 24 hr camaras so they know your every move anyways! Supportive my ass! Another goverment non profit organized with the Justice sytem ! So they can embezzle the non profits money to lets say your wife that runs a woman’s non profit organization in vancouver! Has people loose there jobs and not vompinsate them after 2 years full time employment! You are all a bunch of grease balls running this game! And i’m coming for all of you! Better get your money orders out because I don’t take checks! Sell your precious belongings ! Because thats what you made us do! And dammit people you pay city taxes get those goid for nothing nayors or head of our city clean up to start picking up garbage and not sitting in There trucks or offices waiting for someone else to clean it up. The mayor of Rutland and kelowna need to do there frigging jobs! I have emailed a few and they give you the blow of letter!
We are doing everything we can at this moment but…. Im a princess and don’t do the garbage clean up ! Somebody needs a major pay cut! EVERYONE OF YOU LAZY BASTARDS
Since no one bothered to read the video caption “A homeowner in Kelowna’s Rutland neighbourhood says he has removed trees from his property in an effort to discourage people from using his yard as a place to hide, store belongings and use drugs. The home is in a high-traffic area for the unhoused, seeking social services. Cohan Sassaman reports”
I know it’s hard for some of you to grasp, but those druggies and junkies are actual human beings who didn’t plan for their lives to go this way. You clearly have no idea just how mental illness works. These PEOPLE need our compassion and understanding, not to be charged off to forced labour camps to “clean up and learn some marketable skills”. You’d be surprised at the marketable skills that most of them have, and the “normal” lives they used to lead. Forcing them into labour camps won’t actually clean them up and cure their mental illness. If the day ever comes when any of you need the compassion and understanding of your fellow human beings, I hope you find more caring people than yourselves to help you. But, I know, I know, none of you believe that your lives could ever go wrong, could ever go off the rails. Neither did those homeless people you want to force into labour camps.
Princess auto sells slingshots.
Time to round up the druggies and throw them into forced labour camps where they can clean up and learn some marketable skills…
He should have left out muffins laced with rat poison.
Drug addicts are a nuisance tot eh public good. If an adult is incapable of keeping their life together, if they don’t have a job and are lying in a puddle of their own urine in the middle of the day, it’s time for society to step in and force them to get better. What that requires is a sprawling network of camps 1000 km deep in the forest. Rehabilitatiom through paid hard labour and military discipline. After a few years they are free to leave with the money they made and can start a new clean life. Not hard people, not hard!!!
Rutland is a neighbourhood in Kelowna. I had to Google it. This is terrible journalism.
Rotland.Was a great place to live 50 years ago before all the asholes of the planet moved there
He has to do something, the government won’t. We are left to fend for ourselves with these junkies.
Metro Central. Is that Vancouver? Toronto?
They get fed ..that’s not a good thing huh..? Your choice to ruin yours but I’m sure you you can be seen every Sunday bringing money for skydaddy ..
As a society we need to do better with dealing with the issues around the unhoused., addictions and mental health. Countries that have moved to build places to house people have seen much better outcomes inclusing reductions in addiction, crime and giving people better access to health care. Until we start trying to treat the root of the problem instead of just dealing with the symptoms, this is how things will continue to be
Rutland uk?
You really need to do a better job telling us where the location of these stories take place. Journalists really need to start doing quality work again. Basic things seem to be failing like location of the story
Our family has owned our commercial building on Banks Rd for nearly 50 years, our current tenant has been with us close to 30. About 14 years ago it was burned to the ground by an arsonist, but we rebuilt. Now our tenant and his staff have to deal with drug use next to the building and the unhoused building fires around our building in the colder months. We just spent thousands replacing our established landscaping, as it was being used to camp in, stash belongings and drugs in etc. One of the items the landscapers found was a machete. This is getting out of control.