By Nicole Rutherford
In 2014 the Rideau-Vanier ward’s number of discarded needles found by Ottawa’s Needle Hunters nearly doubled— yet residents didn’t seem to notice. This was indicated by a huge drop of 3-1-1 calls made in July and August between 2013 and 2014.
The number of improperly discarded needles collected in Rideau-Vanier rose from 6,695 to 12,167 between 2013 and 2014. Contrary to this, complaints about discarded needles in the ward fell by 80 per cent between 2013 and 2014. When asked about this discrepancy Rideau-Vanier’s Councillor Mathieu Fleury, was surprised but held some explanations.
“What we noticed was that our response time was too lengthy,” said Fleury. “So more funding was added to the 3-1-1 system a couple of years ago to ensure that when a call came in people could be dispatched more quickly.”
3-1-1 Calls for Discarded Needles in Ottawa for July and August 2013 and 2014 as Reported on Ottawa’s Open Data Web Source, 2015.
But the City of Ottawa staff members such as Parks and Recreational staff account for only a minority of the clean up work. Most of the sanitization is done through the collaboration of Public Health Ottawa and the hiring of the private company, Causeway, to hire Needle Hunters.
“We work with the city collaboratively,” said Ottawa Public Health Environmental Protection Branch Program Manager Craig Calder. “They hire people and we allocate people to the locations based upon city hotspots—both where city workers have found needles and where we have found needles.”
The city’s biggest hotspots for improperly discarded needles by far are the Rideau-Vanier and Somerset wards.
In 2013 the Rideau-Vanier ward held nearly 80 per cent of the needles collected by the Needle Hunters in Ottawa, and Somerset nearly 10 per cent. This was reflected in a majority of 3-1-1 calls. Rideau-Vanier received 38 per cent of the calls for 2013 and 2014, while Somerset received 31 per cent.
“It’s a complex problem in the downtown area,” said Fleury, “This isn’t a one-string approach; we have to work with different partners to support those with addictions, work with youth to prevent addictions, and try to help the homeless with Ottawa’s Community Housing.”
In an attempt to try to control this, in 2013 the Needle Hunters instilled a winter collection program solely in the Rideau-Vanier ward, targeting parking garages and other places sheltered from snow.
Yet when confronted with the doubling of needle finds from 2013 to 2014 Calder couldn’t account for it.
“We don’t have all the data to substantiate why the numbers have gone up,” said Calder. “I can attribute some of the numbers to some of the large caches—you know you’ll find a bag of 400 needles. But we can only attribute these sporadic group finds to two or three thousand more needles at the most.”
Despite the increase in finds, the number of complaints in Rideau-Vanier, at least during the summer months, went down significantly in 2014. In fact, it was Somerset who went up by 20 per cent in 3-1-1 complaints and took first place as the most-reported ward in Ottawa for 2014.
However, when asked how she felt about safety in her Somerset neighborhood, Dalhousie Parent’s Daycare worker Cindy MacLaughlin wasn’t too concerned.
“The daycare is locked behind locked gates, so we’re pretty secure,” said MacLaughlin. “We used to have a picnic table outside of the gates at the back of the school which was a cozy area for nefarious activity, but that’s taken away now. The police do frequent that area, and I guess we have the odd ‘lady of the night’ but overall we’re pretty safe.”
Similarly, Heart and Crown Pub General Manager Marty Pineault said that despite being the at the centre of Rideau-Vanier’s Byward Market, discarded needles have not been a problem for the business.
“It’s not something that we’ve encountered,” said Pineault. “Knock-on-wood, but so far we’ve been okay.”
While the Needle Hunters are made up of a group of only 40 people, it is clear they are doing well at keeping the city clean.
“Many of them are former addicts,” said Calder, “This gives them the ability to gain new skills and transition into new society through meaningful employment.”
Meaningful, powerful and yet quietly unnoticed by Ottawa residents.