Buchanan shopping for solution to Red Deer’s stray cart issue

“The intent of it is to try and figure out how we can make this situation better,” he explains. “I was at Safe Harbour’s AGM last week and their executive director Kath Hoffman was saying the biggest issue right now for them is housing. So maybe that’s a piece of this. We seem to have a lot of folks who don’t have a place to go, so maybe some sort of a drop-in centre or somewhere where our folks could go.”

Buchanan says a lot of money has been spent on cleanups of rough sleeper camps recently, with most of those camps containing shopping carts.

“They just did a cleanup of the shoreline of the river and there was shopping carts in the river,” states Buchanan. “It’s just to try and fix some of the issues that we have to deal with.”

However, any penalties for violating a ban and who they would apply to is something Buchanan hasn’t quite determined yet.

“There are other bylaws out there but I haven’t really taken a look at the penalties section,” he admits. “It is something that goes back to council and it may not even go any further. People might say ‘Buck, forget it, it’s not where we want to be’, so any kind of a penalties section is a long ways off.”

One potential avenue to explore in addressing Red Deer’s shopping cart issue is the old “Dickie Dee-style” ice cream bikes being used in Kelowna, B.C. says Buchanan.

“Maybe not as big as that but that type of an idea with a kind of a locking compartment on it,” he exclaims. “I don’t know how it’s working in Kelowna but that’s something they seem to be trying there, but I don’t know the costs. The cost of the shopping carts, I’ve been told by the retailers, is in that $300-$400 range and can get even more expensive than that.”

He adds that maybe it’s time to expand Red Deer’s Winter Warming Centre hours from its current November to April operations to run year-round.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the problems, it’s just how do we create some solutions,” concludes Buchanan.

Kath Hoffman, Executive Director at Safe Harbour, and officials with The Outreach Centre’s Red Deer Housing Team declined to comment on Buchanan’s proposal.

by Sheldon Spackman

Buchanan shopping for solution to Red Deer’s stray cart issue

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