By Adonis Huggins
(Adonis s a staff with the FOCUS Media Arts Centre)

What does one do when you are often awaken in the middle of the night by the carryings on of an illicit drug trade and sex trafficking in the street below or regularly find drug paraphernalia and used condoms outside your home? What do you do when you are told that police can’t do anything about minor assaults, vandalism and break-ins in the area due to the lack of community officers or an unwillingness to arrest or prosecute offenders due to covid-19?

Well, if you are David Saad, you join your local Neighbourhood Watch Association and get together with your neighbours to hire a private security company to patrol your homes.    
 
David Saad, is a father of two residing in a house located in the Seaton and Dundas Street area, and he is leading a fight to make his neighbourhood safer.  David and his neighbours have started a GoFundMe campaign, to raise the funds needed to hire security guards to nightly patrol five streets (Seaton, Ontario, Milan, Berkeley and Poulette) from Dundas to Queen street. The area is a mixture of low-income housing, rooming houses, retail and commercial properties and expensive residential homes. The area is also home to a vulnerable population of homeless persons, and drug and opioid users as well as a number of supportive services.

In the face of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, it is hardly surprising that more and more homeowners are turning to private security and gated communities as a solution to protecting their homes and dealing with poverty.

David, however takes issue with those who label him unsympathetic to the concerns of the poor or say that his actions are victimizing the already victimized - people who are already dealing with poverty, health, and substance use issues.
 
“I take a bit of issue that poor people are criminals because that is not true in my experience,” says David. “the homeless people who are in and around the neighbourhood aren’t the problem.”   

David argues that the problem is drugs and sex trafficking, intoxication, the assaults and the break and entering in the area. Even so, David admits that the issues are complex and that there are no easy solutions to either poverty, or those that engage in criminal activities as a survival strategy.

David labels himself and many of his neighbours as progressives who are coming from a place of kindness and compassion. David strongly believes that a guaranteed Universal Basic Income, in which everyone receives a liveable income, could help.  

Additionally, the security guards, that David and the neighbourhood watch has contracted, are only on the streets after 10 pm and do not physically touch anybody. When they spot illegal activity just their mere presence is a disruption and the people involved move along elsewhere. David also claims that the guards are First-Aid and CPR trained, and carry Naloxone, a medication that is used to counter decreased breathing in the case of an opioid drug overdose. Finally, David maintains that the guards will also be fully accountable to their group for any complaints of security guards overstepping their authority and violating the zero-touch policy.

According to the GoFundMe page, the private security guards costs $206.00 a night and the group hopes to raise $75,000.  Despite David’s well intentions, one can’t help think that perhaps this money could be used more effectively elsewhere - towards substance abuse prevention, a poverty action group or providing food security to the marginalize. But as David says, the issues are complex.