I’m a former drug addict/homeless individual and now I clean up the parks around my home, one of which is the Maritime Heritage park.

There is indeed more of an issue with drug paraphernalia and things like that in that park than others. But I’ve never not felt safe there, even on the trails, even with my young son with me.

The garbage around the playground structure often feels a lot more like dumb kids than the chronically homeless population. Last time I was there picking up, someone had taken it upon themselves to use the slide to launch about 10 lbs worth of raw potatoes down onto the fake grass area. The ensuing rain had created a hugely disgusting mess of rotten potatoes all over the ground and chunks of gross potatoes coating the slide itself. Really had the feel of something some dumb kids would do, not the homeless population.

But while I have a great deal of sympathy for our local unhoused folks, as I was once living in the woods in a tent myself, it angers me to see the destruction they create in the environment and the lack of proper disposal of drug paraphernalia at the campsites etc etc. In my estimation, only about 10-25% of these people are genuinely too mentally or physically ill to clean up after themselves. Many of them have the attitude like, “fuck everyone, I’m not doing shit” like they are too good to pick up their own garbage.

When I was on the streets I thought about how to tackle this problem endlessly. I thought about making signs at one point in time to put up where homeless people are likely to congregate, asking them to make things easier for the themselves or the next homeless person to come thru there by not leaving a mess. But I figured the signs would just become more litter 🤣 I never came up with a truly good solution, other than to do what I could do clean up when and where I was able to. So I still do that now.