Businesses downtown affected by rise in crime

By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express

According to an executive at the Oshawa Senior Community Centre (OSCC 55+), crime is visibly up, and has taken a toll on the lives of local seniors.

Sandra Black, the executive director of OSCC 55+, says there has been a number of incidents outside her place of work which have left those attending her organization worried.

“Over the past two to three years, staff and our members have noticed an increase in overnight homeless individuals and those who are perhaps experiencing mental health issues or drug addiction [downtown],” she says.

She notes these residents tend to come to the OSCC 55+ John Street branch in downtown Oshawa overnight.

“What started happening is when staff started coming in to open the building at 7:30 in the morning, they would be concerned about those individuals on the patio, or in our stairwells,” she says.

Black notes staff would often find drug paraphernalia such as needles, as well as human waste.

“Then our staff had to clean up after them,” she says.

She notes her organization used to contact the John Howard Society to gather the needles, but it got to be too much and they began to do it themselves with the proper protection.

According to Black, the benches in the back of the building also became a hotspot for criminal activity.

“Drug users would just blatantly sit on the bench and inject themselves, or conduct drug sales right outside our front door,” she says, adding this made staff fearful while leaving the building at night.

This forced them to contact city security, and staff are now being escorted to their cars when the building closes at 9 p.m.

She notes there are a number of seniors who have come into OSCC 55+ who have lost their homes and are experiencing mental health issues, and Black and her team have directed them to the proper resources.

“That’s what we’re here for. We understand that, and we do want to help in any way we can, but when that line is crossed where it starts to affect the health, or perhaps the comfort of staff, then that’s where we need to take some steps,” she says.

The actions taken by those in the back of the building caused Black and her team to remove the benches.

“Unfortunately, those benches were also used by our seniors for rest,” she says.

They’ve also been forced to disconnect outdoor electrical outlets, as homeless residents were charging their phones all night.

“We would come in and there would be sleeping bags outside by our outlets,” she says, adding it’s a problem as they can no longer do some work outside.

She notes there is also graffiti, as well as verbal abuse of staff.

Ultimately, Black’s priority lies in the comfort of those using OSCC 55+’s facilities.

Exterior cameras have been installed in the front and the back of the building with the help of the City of Oshawa.

If there’s an incident caught on camera, Black says security will be sent over to ask the perpetrators to leave.

Black notes she would also like to see more of a physical presence from Durham Regional Police Services in the downtown core, specifically at Memorial Park.

“One of our staff [recently] was sitting in their office, and they did a selfie in front of their window… and there was a young lady… and she was doing meth right outside his office… on John Street,” she says.

She believes if there was a larger police presence, this kind of behaviour might be seen less.

Black also believes there has been a spike in this behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are more people across the road at Memorial Park… we certainly have seen more overnight in our parking lot, in our stairwells, on our patio than we did prior to COVID,” she says.

Black and OSCC 55+ aren’t the only ones in downtown Oshawa seeing a rise in crime, as Oshawa Public Libraries CEO Frances Newman says the number of incidents outside the McLaughlin branch has increased dramatically over the past year, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Some staff and customers have reported feeling unsafe at the McLaughlin Branch due to intimidating behaviours of individuals or groups of people loitering outside the library’s public and staff entrances, and witnessing illegal activities occurring openly around the library and the downtown core,” says Newman.

With reports of illegal incidents downtown on the rise, Newman says the need for police support, as well as that of mental health agencies, is more important now than ever.