HAREWOOD CRACK HOUSE FLOURISHES WITH NO SOLUTION

To the Editor,

Ever since I moved to Nanaimo, back in 1993, I have been a proud
resident of the Harewood community. My kids have attended school here,
they have played with our terrific neighbourhood sports teams, they
learned how to swim at the Colliery Dam, they've made life-long
friends and I have enjoyed the friendship and support of fine
neighbors who have been committed to maintaining our neighbourhood as
a safe and welcoming community for adults and children alike.

When I recently became interim dean of the faculty of social sciences
and management at Malaspina University-College, a colleague asked if
this meant that I would now move to the north end of town. I was
stunned. Leave Harewood? The best kept neighbourhood secret in
Nanaimo? You've got to be kidding.

And I still feel that way, even with the all the cars parking in front
of my house at all hours, day and night, to drop off folks who
promptly head for a house just around the corner from me.

Business, if that's what it is, has been booming at what neighbours
have taken to calling "the crack-house" for months. It's, of course,
not officially clear what the business of the house is, but its
clientele, if that's what it is, seems to include a wide variety of
the Nanaimo population: businessmen in suits; "cool" young men driving
expensive sports cars; young women accompanied by men who, anywhere
else, might be mistaken for pimps; the odd 40-year-old woman in a
family mini-van.

From the street, the house is anything but an outwardly welcoming
place. Garbage litters the yard which is filled with vehicles
generally in a state of disrepair, what blinds there are are torn; if
the house collapsed tomorrow, I doubt that anyone would be surprised.

But am I moving? Well, no. And it's not because I doubt that anyone
would buy the house into which I, like my neighbours, have poured 10
years worth of money and sweat in renovations.

No. I'm not going to move because there's no point. You see folks,
there's nothing to prevent the folks at the house around the corner
from following me to your neck of the Nanaimo woods. They can set up
anywhere, it seems, and no one can do anything about it.

My neighbours and I dutifully report licence plate numbers to the
police who have vowed to help us. The trouble is, apparently, they
can't. Last night, after investigating a car parked across the end of
my driveway, a constable confirmed for me what we've all suspected,
that we'd have better luck getting the city to have the house shut
down as a "nuisance property."

Well, we've also discovered that there's no luck there at
all.

Some of my neighbours feel that if the house around the corner was
located in the north end, things might be different. I assure them
that that's hardly credible. There's no good reason to believe that
city council, the police and the Crown prosecutor have it in for
Harewood. If nothing can be done about this kind of house here,
nothing can be done anywhere.

So, no. I'm not moving. There's no point. It appears that a certain
kind of house is going to be allowed to flourish in Nanaimo. We all
might as well get used to it. Let me know when one comes to your
neighborhood. We can talk about setting up a secondary business in
lemonade stands for the multitude of folks who are going to be regular
visitors. I've got some good ideas.

Anne Leavitt,

Nanaimo