City officials meet with Fredericton business owners about rise in uptown disturbances

City of Fredericton officials are looking for solutions after uptown businesses have reported an increase in disturbances, says the mayor. 

On Thursday evening, Kate Rogers met with owners and representatives of businesses along Regent and Prospect streets to hear their concerns about what they say has been a rise in loitering and open drug use in the area.

"Some of it is like nuisance behaviour. … A lot of, a lot of loitering and some drug use, which would be criminal behaviour, but people then feeling threatened, and the unpredictability that comes with, with the challenges of some of the people that, that were causing some of the concern," Rogers said after the meeting, which was closed to the public.

CBC News requested interviews with business owners and representatives as they left the meeting at the Fredericton Inn, but none agreed to one.

Krista Ross, CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce, didn't attend the meeting but said her members have come to her with complaints about the situation.

"The first thing that they all say is that they're certainly empathetic and concerned about the problem that is facing our community, of people who don't have shelter," Ross said.

However, she said business representatives she's spoken to have told her they've experienced an increase in people being aggressive to their customers and staff.

One member, who is a residential landlord, also reported that discarded hypodermic needles have been found on the ground outside the compound, Ross said.

"Everybody needs to feel safe and comfortable. And people who are paying rent to live in an apartment, it's not fair to them if people that don't live in the building are coming into the building and ... trying to come into their apartments and use their washroom facilities and so on."

Disturbances became more frequent with tent encampment

Rogers said about 20 people representing businesses attended the meeting and talked about first noticing an increase in problems when a homeless shelter temporarily used Fredericton High School for more space during the COVID-19 pandemic last year. 

Then this summer, a tent encampment formed in an area behind the City Motel, which led to even more disturbances at businesses, Rogers said.

She said Fredericton police dispersed the encampment in recent weeks, because it wasn't one of the city's sanctioned tent encampments, such as the one next to Government House.

"So the police are working with that, with that group to try to help to move them along, and so we're hoping that that will will make a difference.

"But it often just displaces some of those people if they choose not to be in the sanctioned sites … and so you don't know if you've really resolved an issue, or if you've just put it into another area."

In March, city council voted to provide $900,000 to the John Howard Society to help fund a project that would turn the City Motel,  at Regent and Prospect streets, into 20 affordable housing units, 12 peer-supported units, and a 24-bed emergency homeless shelter.

Rogers said the problems businesses say they're facing now are not related to that project as it hasn't been established yet.

CBC News was unable to reach anyone from the John Howard Society for comment on Friday.

She said concerned businesses should report any unwanted activity to the police, so criminal matters can be addressed, or people on the street can receive whatever support services they might need.

"We also need to be collecting data because we're seeing a lot of these challenges," Rogers said.

"Within sort of the past year or so, they have intensified and we need to develop an understanding of exactly what the challenges are so that we know how to serve it."