TAKING BACK THEIR NEIGHBOURHOOD

Residents Get Tough In Reclaiming Celina Street And Surrounding Area
From Drugs And Prostitution

OSHAWA - From behind the clematis that climbs the front porch of Lyle
Henderson's house on Celina Street, you can literally see it all.

There's the crack house in the area where regulars come and go like
clockwork to feed their habit. Prostitution is so rampant that johns
circle the neighbourhood. And the ladies of the evening are bold
enough to ply their trade in broad daylight.

"Day is night to them. It's whenever they can get their fix," says Mr.
Henderson, who has lived on Celina Street since 1978.

Frustration led him and about 25 other long-time residents to recently
form a group dedicated entirely to taking back a neighbourhood whose
reputation had started to devolve from a haven for families to a
thoroughfare of drugs and debauchery.

The group is anxious to push the positives of life on Celina Street.
It's a place, they say, where neighbours look out for one another. But
at the same time, there's no denying what residents have been made to
put up with.

Their children have had to walk past hookers on their way to school in
the morning. Some of them have found used needles. Most of the women
living on the street - even the elderly - have been mistaken for
prostitutes by johns at one time or another.

Ten-year resident Karen Holmes calls their cat-calls and propositions
"the biggest insult."

The group has an action plan that involves working closely with police
and City officials. When they see the same caddy circling the
neighbourhood or parked in front of a drug house, residents don't
hesitate to call in the licence plate.

In an effort to shame away the regulars, they sometimes take photos of
licence plates. William Connelly likes to confront them by physically
pointing to them on the street, which he says, "kind of freaks them
out."

Next, the residents plan to purchase Neighbourhood Watch signs and set
up a Block Parent zone for the safety of the area's children and
elderly. The group has also filled out victim-impact statements so
that when johns and prostitutes charged in the area attend court, the
judge can see in writing how the actions of those accused are
victimizing the community.

They're also fighting landlords who apply for variances to create more
rooming houses in their neighbourhood by taking their objection to the
City's committee of adjustment. Residents are also watching very
carefully the several rooming houses already established in the area,
ready to report any infractions.

The objective is to get the rooming houses out and more families back
in to the neighbourhood so the drug dealers, the prostitutes and those
who use their services simply go elsewhere.