A Wallaceburg neighbourhood will be the focus of an upcoming meeting at the Moose Lodge.
The Chatham-Kent Police Community Mobilization group is coming to town on October 26 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the Wallace Street and surrounding area. Marjorie Crew, a former councillor and the coordinator of the mobilization group, said a presentation will be made about building associations in neighbourhoods and the positive impact it can have.
Group has already worked in Wallaceburg
“We have been working with Wallaceburg with the Community Mobilization Group and working on the West Court units for several years and we have experienced a lot of success with that,” Crew told the Sydenham Current.
“Now we are using all the experience that we have gained from East Side Pride, other community associations and the success we have had with Chatham Central Association, West Court and other associations across Chatham Kent. What we have found from theses associations is the bi-products of them, people get together for whatever reason, it pulls them together.”
“East Side Pride, it was crime that first brought them together. West Court, it was difficulties with renting the units, keeping good tenants, changing the climate and making sure that people had a good place to live. Wheatley Concerned Citizens, they were brought together through amalgamation. The Chatham Central group was brought together as a Community Mobilization Pilot project.”
Crew said these projects and associations have all been successful in different ways.
“East Side Pride for the last 15 years plus has experienced a 30% reduction in crime that has been sustainable. So that is a really good bi-product. Than you have safer communities and safer neighbourhoods,” she said.
“I don’t want to focus on crime because the problem is, if you are focusing just on crime than you just have a Neighbourhood Watch. Neighbourhood Watch usually breaks apart and its not sustainable but what you know from those things is that when neighbours get together, they can make positive thins happen.”
“So to make it sustainable you make it about community building activities. You look at ‘what are the risks to my neighbourhood, what are the good things in my neighbourhood, what can we build on, what are the assets, how do we make it better and safer for kids’.”
Ideas and discussion encouraged
Crew said the Wallace Street area was decided as a focus, after discussions and meetings with the Community Mobilization group.
“We have done the West Court project and have had success, so we need to have another focus to continue on,” she said. “We decided that Wallace Street just kept coming up. The perceived image is already there.”
Crew said their group will go to the Moose Lodge on Oct. 26 and see what the neighbours think.
“Come with your ideas, come with an open mind is what we are asking. Come and tell us what you see and what you think you need. If you don’t want to do anything, we are fine, but we are here to show you how to do it if you want to develop an association. Sometimes it is just telling people what is there and what supports are there if you want to do something. We know that this works,” she said.
“If you want it to be sustainable, the neighbours have to take ownership of it and they need to keep it going. It could be as simple as building whatever they see in their neighbourhood that is important to them. Maybe it’s crossing guards, maybe we need to beautify some things. That is one of the things that the Chatham Central group started with. One of the things they said was that the neighbours just couldn’t afford to beautify their property. ‘Okay, lets give them some plants’. So we had a huge plant exchange and we got the neighbours out, got them talking and asked them if they wanted to do more of these kind of things and guess what… they did. So now they have a really strong neighbourhood association.”
Crew added: “I don’t want to sound vague, but I don’t want to sound cookie cutter either. Every single neighbourhood is different.”
A good foundation work with
After taking a drive down Wallace Street with Const. Lynette Hodder, the other coordinator of the group, Crew said they were impressed with the neighbourhood.
“Lynette and I drove down Wallace Street and I said ‘Really? It’s not that bad’. You have a beautiful river, you have a trail there, beautiful houses,” Crew said.
“You have some housing units that probably are giving people some reason for concern, however there is opportunities for landlords to join the Landlords Association and learn from the Taylor Ave. group. That Neighbourhood Watch group totally turned that neighbourhood around. We will talk a little bit about what happened there and how the landlords got involved and the property owners. If you have a property that no one wants to live in, if you have a high vacancy unit and the only thing you can get is people that you don’t want you have a problem.”
Crew said none of this is easy.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and say you are going to do this,” she said.
“It’s work but I tell everybody, home does not stop at your door step. You can cut through it all you want and go to work and go home, but if you are doing that than your neighbourhood is not your home and it is up to you to make it your home. We try to take care of the inside of our home and make sure you sustain and you maintain your investment. The same goes for your neighbourhood.”
Watch for more on this story.
Here is the event poster:
The first thing the town needs to do is take away the crack house on the corner and tear it down. It’s an obvious eye soar not to say the least and a BIG FIRE HAZZARD! Boo has hoarded himself out of the house and all it is doing is sitting rotting attracting scumbags and making the surrounding houses worth less.It has been a hole for years and needs to be torn down!!!!!!!!!!
Also, the opposite corner where the building is that used to be used for boat covering etc…is also jam packed to the roof with crap and its also a BIG FIRE HAZZARD and who knows what chemicals are inside that building.The same crap sits outside year after year and no-one cleans it up!!!!!!!
I think maybe before the meeting everyone should take a drive down the street and really pay attention to how rental properties are taken care of my the renters, it helps if they take care of the outside instead of using their yards for dumping grounds. The street could look so much nicer if property owners kept an eye on who they rent to and made sure they kept the yards clean. That’s why everyone calls it crack alley or welfare alley because of the way it looks. I used to live on Wallace St. and was embarrassed to tell anyone but because of the reputation of that street.
OH YAH!!! and don’t you think it’s about time to tear down the Kent Tavern!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!