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The Point
Community News North & South Point Douglas ♦ Explore Life in The Point! |
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Last updated Mar 08/10
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What is Power Line? What
you need to do
Power Line is Alive and Kicking! Updates - May 8 May 23 July 13 Sept 11/09 Press Release Dec 29/09 Dec 31/09 Feb/10 Power Line (956-4090) is the number to call in North and South Point Douglas when you want to anonymously report any criminal or suspicious activity going on in a house or building in your area. There is no Call Display function on the Power Line phone so your call will be completely anonymous. Once you report a problem house to Powerline, they will report the location to the Public Safety Investigations branch of Manitoba Justice, which works through the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act (SCNA). This Act is a civil law which holds the property owner responsible for activities happening on their property. There may or may not be police involvement, depending on the situation. These are the things people need to document and report in order to have a house deemed a 'problem house'. You can report all these things to the Power line:
The investigators will set up surveillance and monitor the activities at the house and then go to the property owner with their findings. The property owner will be held responsible for the activities going on in his house and most often will evict the problem tenants. The SCNA initiative has been very successful in its efforts on behalf of our community and others. If you want to call the Investigations unit directly, you can call them at 945-3475, anonymously. Powerline is not an agency or government office of any kind. It was started by some residents in our neighbourhood and we’ve done it all ourselves. You are part of our neighbourhood, and working together, we can clean up your part of the Point as well. To set up your own network, as we’ve done in our part of the Point, you need one or two people on each block in your area to watch what’s going on, and phone or email in the information. The Investigative unit will begin its work very quickly. The people who do the reporting will never be identified. Power Line has no meetings, they communicate by email (email addresses are not shared) or telephone. If you would like the folks at Powerline to help you set up your network, please contact them at 956-4090 or email point.powerline@yahoo.com More about Powerline Important Links:
May 8 Power Line Update
How sad that the last two murders in our community were as a result of drinking/drugging/partying gone wrong. I always tell my friends, it's not so much about where you live as much as who you know. Statistically family and friends are most likely to hurt you.
The Police have been very active and helpful in the area
lately, paying visits to some of our alleged crack houses and some arrests
have been made. I thank the police for Point Douglas and I tell them that I
get as many calls and emails about what they are up to in the area as to what
the bad guys are doing, so we also know if they have been professional in the
treatment of all our residents.
It is bicycle weather again, so we see the silly
gang-bangers flying around, my 8 year old grandson was horrified because one
of them "gave me the middle finger". I just giggled, they know our car.
Anyway quite a few bicycles are being stolen and dumped. We
turned in three the other day that had been dumped in someone's back yard.
Bike recovery at 311 is an easy way to get them picked up, also if you see a
lot of bikes gathering in a yard, they are probably stolen. We mentioned to a
neighbour that the police were looking for bike thieves and suddenly all those
bikes disappeared, sadly I don't think the police have time to track down bike
thieves. Let me know if you do see a lot of bikes dumped in one yard please.
Please keep turning in abandoned furniture to me when you
see it anywhere in our neighbourhood. It makes the place look so much better
and amazingly has cut down on dumpster and back lane fires.
If you want to turn in abandoned furniture yourselves, it
is much quicker by email....
They will need your name, address and phone number. the
number of the house where it is to be found, and whether it is on the
boulevard or back lane. There is no charge for this service to the number of
the house where the stuff is or to you for giving your address when turning it
in. If there was a charge I'd be in bankruptcy by now, just wish they gave out
air miles for turning stuff in! I love 311 especially by email, they are
efficient and friendly.
So a big thank you to all of you people who are watching
out for their neighbours, and all those who work with us to keep our
lovely Point Douglas safe........I just wish there was someone we could call
about the weather.
Happy Mothers' Day to all,
Ms.
Chris Burrows
40 Grove Street
Winnipeg MB
R2W3K7
Tel#
956-4090
Face
these Facts....In
over 90% of child
abuse cases, the offender is a family member, friend or
someone else that these children know well; and we all worry
about STRANGERS? Fathers
account for 97% of inter-familial sexual abuse perpetrators.
Take pride, you live in beautiful Point Douglas,
the Historic Centre of Winnipeg.
Apathy, lethargy
and fear make accomplices of us all.
May 23 Update - Thanks very much to all of you who came out for the riverbank clean up where we were helped by The United Way's day of caring and dozens of teenagers came out to help.
Thanks also to the people who showed for the annual spring clean up
today.
Despite the cool spring weather our community is clearly taking far
more pride in North Point Douglas.
A few years ago 3 BFI dumpsters were needed for all the garbage on our
streets and boulevards. It is amazing but we were hard pressed to half
fill about 20 green garbage bags today.
Thanks to Roanna for organising these events and also for the great
job she did on our Residents Committee AGM.
July 13 Update - Hi all,
On Saturday we had a call from ------ Street, a young man had found
what he assumed to be crack in a plastic bag in his yard, gang kids
often just throw down their bikes in the back lane and hide in
spaces where they will not be visible to police.
We suspect that some kid ditched his stash there and may have planned to come back for it later.
This was kind of a first for all of us; the young man who had found
it, wanted it gone immediately so the Powerline went and took it
down to the main desk at The Public Safety building. We called in to
the non-emerg # to let them know we were coming.
I guess there is no protocol at the station for this...granny and
grandpa turning in crack? As nobody really knew what to do with us
or it!
I had phone calls this morning asking what had happened on Austin,
nobody remembers it being so quiet on a weekend in a very long time.
Pepper spray is in the Austin and Lorne area so be careful don't
stop with car windows down. We were checking out an alleged dealing
address and had to move very fast from a burst of spray. We gave a
very good description of the youth involved.
Anyway, thanks for all your help, we are so proud of the people on
Austin who are saying NO MORE to the drugs and gangs; one very bad
alleged dealing address is up for sale.
So please keep up your great work, little by little we are taking
back the neighbourhood.
It seems things were pretty nasty on the other side of Main this
weekend, so I'm glad we were behaving better in Point Douglas.
Ms.Chris Burrows
Press Release - Sept 11/09 Point Douglas Citizens on Watch (COWS) Point.Powerline Community Policing Huge Success in Point Douglas With well over 100 citizens involved in Crime Prevention through the Point Douglas Powerline (an anonymous phone and email line run by volunteers), our community has been working closely with the Winnipeg Police Service and the Police Community Support Unit. This week that relationship showed amazing results. Neighbours on two streets had identified the leaders of small groups of youth who were selling crack from between houses. In two different actions the police arrested the ring leaders. One was found to have 32 ‘rocks’ of crack in his possession. The police officers involved were searching one apartment after the arrest when there was a loud knocking at the door and a man yelling...”open up...I want a couple of rocks”. You can imagine his surprise when the police opened the apartment door and invited him in. Two days later another guy was pounding on that apartment door. A neighbour asked him if he needed any help. The fellow said, “I’m looking for my buddy so I can score some crack”. The neighbour in the lovely bluntness one finds in the inner city replied. “Your buddy is in jail. Get the F*** out of here or I’ll call the cops and you’ll join him.” The fellow was last seen scurrying down the street. There is real power for neighbours knowing they aren’t alone in wanting to stop crime . The Point Douglas Powerline has enabled neighbours who want a safe neighbourhood to communicate their concerns with no threat of retaliation. Recently a gang member told one of our residents, “we stay out of Point Douglas, Too many people watchin.” The Police in District 3 , have incorporated a new structure so that the police officers work the same community on an ongoing basis. This allows the Powerline to provide more detailed background of criminals or alert them to incipient crime. The response time to concerns has increased immensely. When we first set out to “Make Point Douglas A Crack Free Zone” two years ago, it would often take months to deal with an issue. Now, with improved police systems and an active community, most situations are dealt with in days or weeks. I say most because we know there are certain criminals in our community that are skilled or sneaky enough to escape our ‘eyes on the street’. However, just keeping the bad guys nervously looking over their shoulder protects the community. We know the main crack supplier doesn’t live in Point Douglas but in a large house in a very pleasant neighbourhood. Could she be your neighbour? Recently Point Douglas Powerline has added a whole new tactic to our toolkit to keep the bad guys on the run. Previously we had a few landlords we worked with who would actively cooperate with us in evicting criminals. Now we have discovered that the huge majority of landlords are willing to work towards making our community safe. Many of the younger ganglet members are couch surfers. They move in with relatives, girl friends and use that address as a base for their criminal activities. We now have many landlords, including several very large ones, who will go to their legitimate tenant and tell them they are responsible for what goes on in their suite. Get the bad guy out or you face eviction. Many tenants find this really empowering , having a concrete reason to tell the kid to get out. This saves the police a lot of time so they can focus on the more serious criminals. One landlord recently evicted a young man and his friends who were caught with crack. While one will probably spend a long time in the youth centre the other two have indicated they want out of the ganglet subculture. We have learned in tackling crime that no one solution fits all. We need the police for the heavy lifting, for the dangerous ones. However, when the community sends a strong message that criminal behaviour is not accepted, a lot of crime is prevented. We occasionally face criticism with our crime prevention methods. We know they aren’t perfect, but with the increased community orientation of the police and over 100 neighbours involved, Point Douglas is fast moving from a high crime area to a low crime area. Chris Burrows Coordinator, Point Douglas Powerline 956-4090 point.powerline@yahoo.com
COMMUNITY VICTORY ON AUSTIN Point Douglas Powerline, AKA, Point Douglas Citizens on Watch, working with neighbours have had drug dealers evicted and or arrested at two addresses. Thanks to the Dept of Justice Community Safety Act and police, but mostly thanks to the neighbours who decided they wouldn’t put up with it anymore. Want to be part of cleaning up Austin and surrounding streets? Call powerline. We still have a few drug houses to go to make Austin St. a safe place to live. The powerline is an all volunteer, totally anonymous group committed to making Point Douglas a safe and a pleasant place to live. The powerline also reports overflowing garbage, kids not going to school (September), and abandoned furniture. If you want to be part of the solution email point.powerline@yahoo.com or call 956-4090. There is no call display and only the coordinator of the powerline, a retired teacher, knows the email addresses, so no one will know you called unless you choose. Let the powerline know if you see crack dealing, suspicious cars picking up stuff (licence plate # very helpful), or other criminal activity. If it’s an emergency call 911. Guns are a problem and the police want to know where they are. You can call the police service at 986-6222 or contact the powerline and we will put in the complaint for you. We know many people are afraid of retaliation, so this is a way to keep your street safe without letting anyone know who you are. Presently there are eight people living on Austin who are active on the powerline. Want to join them? We know there are more good guys than bad guys and we can win. Join your neighbours to drive crack dealers and gangs out of Point Douglas. There are now over 100 powerline people in Point Douglas. Add your eyes. No one will know who you are. Our goals are: no crack dealers, no gangs, no sex trade workers on our streets, no broken windows, no overflowing garbage, no kids not going to school. POINT DOUGLAS CITIZENS ON WATCH 956-4090Leave a message if we aren’t home. This is an entirely volunteer group. December 29/09 Celebrating a Great Year! Hi Everybody, the New Year is fast approaching and this has been a great year for the POWERLINE network; we have grown. More people on our email and a lot more random callers. BUT despite the growth of our network or maybe because of it, we are receiving fewer reports of crime and negative behaviour in Point Douglas. I check the crime stats for our area every time they are published and it is looking very, very good. Point Douglas is now a low crime area. Families with children are moving into the area, we have artists and skilled trades people coming into the community. The homes right around us have been upgraded significantly and we have some very good landlords buying up rentals in the area. I have added an update about the POWERLINE, below, as a reminder of all that we can do together. I thank you all for continuing to share the concerns in your neighbourhood and wish each one of you a very happy and pleasant new year in our lovely riverside community. The POWERLINE, working for Point Douglas...
Dec 31/09 - Looking over the most recent police reports for the city, it is good to see the police are very busy in different parts of the city and it helps us to understand why we don't always see them as fast as we would like here. Please remember when you make a report to the non emergency number to ask for an incident number, even if they can't send a car out at the time, your making a report with an incident number means that the incident is recorded. Officers are often assigned according to the number of incidents in an area, so by making sure the police are aware of local crime, we get better service. Coming home from a family get together last night we watched a drug deal on Austin and reported it then turning down a back lane to get to our home saw the same car make another deal at a different house on the back lane of Barber, so we reported that too and have our incident number to prove it! Have a very safe, healthy and Happy New Year, Chris Hi everybody, we are looking at getting some of the boarded-up houses, opened . There is a huge shortage of housing and it is ridiculous that we have houses that have been boarded up for years. One of our residents on Lusted has decided he is fed-up with a house on his block that has had an 'insanitary' sign on it for years, so he is starting a petition to get something done. He wondered if there were others in the Point who also would like to see unused houses dealt with; I know of at least two houses where people would either like to buy them or see them fixed up. Some of the houses are not boarded but just left empty in rather shabby state. We thought that if we could send a number of these petitions at once to the city we might have a better chance of getting something done. You can write up your own petition or you can print it from this page. Click on the link - print petition - go to 'File' and click 'print'. When you've collected signatures from people on your block, please bring the petition to us at 40 Grove Street. I would love to see the unsightly house on our street become a family home. It really is the only really shabby house on the street; this owner has four houses, one he lives in and the other three are empty. Right now is a good time to sell as prices are way higher in the Point than they have been for years. Please get back to me if you plan to start a petition so we can coordinate sending them in. Chris Feb 17 Update - SUCCESS!! I am not sure that you can actually smell success, anymore that the neighbours on Lusted could actually smell the "insanitary" house that has been boarded up on their street forever. But it is certainly an "icky" feeling to have a house with that sign on it a few homes away from your own and so wasteful when there is a shortage of houses in the city. I sent out an email a while ago encouraging residents to start their own street petitions to get the boarded houses on their street cleaned up and opened, to harmonise with a general push the POWERLINE coordinators are doing to open up the boarded and vacant houses in our area. Congratulations to the residents of Lusted, you have done it, it was almost miraculous a street monitor started a petition and had not even turned it over to the POWERLINE and suddenly the boards were down the place is being cleaned up and rented out after many years of being boarded up! BRILLIANT, this is the power of the residents in a community when they decide to take control of their own neighbourhood. I would love to go out and get signatures myself on the petitions, but due to a chronic disease I have developed I am more or less under house arrest for the winter. The disease is Scleroderma, quite rare, but my hands often go numb with cold even inside the house while I am typing, and I have lost most of the strength in my legs and can't walk very far. Even thinking about a walker for my birthday, OH great! Good job being the POWERLINE person keeps me busy and can mostly be done from home. (It is an auto immune disease and not contagious so no worries there!) Recently Roanna the chair of PDRC gave me a button it says: NEVER DOUBT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF THOUGHTFUL COMMITTED CITIZENS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD: INDEED IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS. Margaret Meade Thanks Ro, Point Douglas is the living proof of that statement! Explore Life in The Point!
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