People living in downtown Hamilton area say it's 'disgusting.' City says it's stepping up cleaning

Walking along Main Street in the city's core on Friday, Victoria Hipson had one word to describe the state of downtown Hamilton.

"Disgusting."

The 70-year-old retired personal support worker lives in the east end but says she frequents downtown.

When she does, she says she typically sees empty coffee cups, food wrappers and other litter on the sidewalks.

All it takes is a walk down James Street North toward Main to see graffiti scrawled across the walls of the now-closed City Centre and feces on the sidewalk.

Phil Caldwell, Hamilton's senior project manager in the economic development division, said there's no single contributor to the filth.

"At the end of the day, downtown is growing and there's more people living downtown," he said. "There's more cranes in the sky, the population is growing."

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Now, the city is ramping up cleaning efforts in the core, with a daily sidewalk litter and sweeping service, instead of just on weekdays.

There will also be roadway and cycle lane sweeping, weed trimming, debris pickup and graffiti removal.

Downtown is Hamilton's 'crown jewel'

"Our downtown should be a place that Hamiltonians can be proud to visit, and proud to show off – this is an important step in this endeavour," Mayor Andrea Horwath posted on the social media platform called X, formerly known as Twitter.

Caldwell said the roadway cleaning, weed trimming and graffiti removal will begin in a month or so.

All the extra cleaning will cost between $680,000 and $780,000. It will take place until July next year.

To those who don't want their taxpayer dollars going toward cleaning downtown, Caldwell says it will benefit all residents.

"Downtown is the crown jewel of Hamilton," he said.

"It's the central business district, it's where people are moving to ... it's important downtown be in a clean state and that it's in a condition that it can continue to attract residents and businesses," he said.

Yash Patel, 25, moved from India to Hamilton a year ago.

"I think Hamilton downtown is clean compared to other cities," he said.

He said the city does a good job and shouldn't have to take all the blame.

"It's the people's responsibility, too," he said.