Rainbow Park security, sanitation measures expected as early as Monday

Fencing, security guards, washrooms and more lighting are coming to Rainbow Park as early as Monday, after Sarnia city council recently approved measures to deal with what’s been described as a looming public health crisis.

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Fencing will divide the park into three parts, city officials announced Friday, sectioning off the park’s playground from what a Lambton County official recently said has become a 50-person encampment.

There’ll be access to all sections from Christina Street, city spokesperson Steve Henschel said, noting the fencing will run east-west from Christina Street to the CN Rail fence line in the park’s west, dividing the park into north, south, and central sections.

Security guards will monitor the area — in addition to regular police and city bylaw patrols — seven days a week, from 7 am to 9 pm, Henschel said.

“To keep tabs on the area (and) maintain access to the playground area,” he said.

More lighting is going in at the park’s four corners, and at the playground, to enhance site safety, a city release says.

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And washrooms will be trucked twice daily to the park’s southeast corner, from 8 am to 10 am, and 4 pm to 6 pm, to address sanitation concerns, Henschel said.

Adding washrooms intermittently instead of around the clock means city officials don’t have to maintain security over them all the time, Henschel said.

“It’s a piece of physical infrastructure that belongs to contractors, so we would have to keep an eye on it,” he said.

There’s no immediate cost estimate on the measures, but updates to council every 30 days were part of council’s June 14 decision to allow the measures in the park, Henschel said.

“Within 30 days, we will be reporting those costs back to the public and to council,” he said.

Police, parks and other city departments were consulted before the measures were decided, he said, noting city officials will be in the park during the weekend letting people camping there know what’s coming.

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“Residents in the area have expressed numerous concerns related to security, sanitation,” he said. “So, that’s what a lot of these measures are hoping to address.”

A dumpster also recently was moved on site, not related to council’s decision, to better address waste in the park, he said.

Neighbors have called for the encampment — that social services officials have said includes many hard to house, mentally ill and substance dependent people — to go amid concerns about drugs, including several overdoses, and violence, including stabbing that led to an attempted murder charge, in the park.

Sarnia has unused emergency shelter spaces, but recent court rulings in Waterloo and Kingston and a third-party legal opinion obtained by the City of Sarnia, say such beds aren’t enough to justify removing people from public parks, in violation of charter rights to life, liberty and security of person.

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“Truly accessible” shelter spaces — allowing couples to stay together, people to bring in pets or drugs, and ensuring safety from violence and sexual predation — are needed, officials have said.

Neighbor Sharon Docherty said she hopes the extra lighting, fencing and security presence will have an effect.

“I hope it actually makes (the campers) move,” she said. “I hope they hate being watched. I hope they hate having the lights on them. I hope that people will start using the park again… and (the campers) go.”

Docherty, who’s reported concerns about knife-wielding campers acting erratically in the park before, said more recently people have been using drugs and passing out on her property.

“Multiple times my husband has had to go out, wake them up and kick them off,” she said.

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She’d prefer fencing to go north-south in the park instead, to separate the tents from the playground, she said.

“They’re fencing off the playground instead of fencing the people who are the problem, who are the addicted campers,” she said about the city’s plan.

Security during the day is a start, but it will just push drug use exclusively after dark, she said.

“And we’ll be left to deal with the fallout of that.”

A peaceful protest against allowing homeless encampments in the city is planned June 28, from 3 pm to 5:30 pm, she said, with people expected to walk from Queen and Devine streets, past Rainbow Park, to city hall.

“Those of us who are willing to put our faces out there are going to,” she said.

An encampment protocol draft for the city is also expected to come to council when it next meets July 8, after city staff took over earlier this month crafting the rules for dealing with homeless encampments, including areas where they can and cannot go.

Lambton County’s community safety and well-being leadership group initially was tasked in May with crafting the protocol, but wasn’t able to so fast enough, co-chair and Sarnia Coun. Brian White said.

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