‘Urinated, defecated, bled on’: Saskatoon to remove 25 downtown benches

There may be a few less places to sit in Saskatoon.

The city is taking out 25 downtown benches on the advice of the Downtown Saskatoon Business Improvement District.

Executive Director Shawna Nelson said Downtown Saskatoon’s clean team has seen issues with graffiti and lack of cleanliness.

She joined the Evan Bray Show on Wednesday to talk about issues surrounding the aging benches.

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Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript below:

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Evan Bray: My understanding is there’s about 25 benches that are being considered to be removed. Is that removed completely?

Shawna Nelson: Our downtown in general, outside of our district, has around 400 benches. There are about 220 that are in our district, and the 25 that I’m suggesting that need to be removed, not permanently, by the way, are the ones that are the oldest and are the ones that have been neglected for a very, very long time.

What is it about these benches, that basically the best decision is to remove them and then eventually replace them?

Nelson: There are about four different models of benches in our downtown. So over time, it’s evolved. Businesses have changed, and these are the older models that we have. Those 25 that we’ve identified are the ones that have a type of wood that we’re unable to repair on the spot. This is a public asset, this is a city asset, and our clean team of eight individuals are out there trying to clean them, but they’re beyond cleanliness right now. They have paint, they have graffiti. They have been urinated, defecated, bled on. I mean, we’re continually out there trying to clean them at this point. They’re rough. They’re just not in good shape. They have to be removed and then we can decide whether we can repair them, put a varnish on that could be anti-graffiti or easy to clean. And we are going to see if there’s a different model of bench to replace them with, and then also decide if it’s the right place to put the bench. Because now businesses have changed, we’ve got benches that are in front of a parking lot, facing a parking lot. That doesn’t make sense, no one needs to sit and rest and watch a parking lot.

Is this request to remove these benches kind of the canary in the coal mine for the problems that we’re seeing in downtown Saskatoon?

Nelson: These benches are the ones that are being mostly used by individuals that aren’t using them for the right reasons, for sure. We have received requests, whether they be by business or customers, that are saying that these benches are sort of gathering places where you’re going to see individuals that are engaging in bad behaviour. People are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing on these benches, which is resting, taking your time, and then moving on. They’re becoming permanent places for people to gather, to encamp, to do behaviour that’s not legal. So, do I think that this is going to actually fix the problem? Not necessarily. No, there’s a lot more that needs to be addressed. I mean we know that this isn’t going to fix some of the social issues and challenges that we have in our city.

What are you hearing from businesses on the issue of these benches? 

Nelson: There is an email and phone number that you can use to send the city your request for benches to be removed, and they have received quite a few applications to have benches removed throughout the past year. The city approached me and we sat down to talk about which benches, not only are the ones that are sort of targeted with having issues in that regard, but also need repairs. We’re going to kill two birds with one stone and try to fix the benches that need to be fixed, but also see if we can strategically put them in a place that we’re going to have the right use of them.

You have been very supportive of finding ways to help people in a meaningful way, but at the same time recognizing businesses and property owners also have some important rights. Are you feeling as if the city is making moves in the right direction?

Nelson: Obviously, there are challenges downtown, and they get to be a little bit more challenging in the warmer months. And when I look at the individuals that are either unhoused or the ones that are actually creating the bad behaviour, such as public intoxication and drug use and all of those issues, there’s different ways of handling those situations. When it comes to the unhoused, when we’re at 40 C and above, and they’re laying on benches and sleeping on benches, there’s places that the city and the province have put in place for these individual individuals to go. We have Salvation Army. We have Avenue C drop-in centre. We have Station 20. This is where we need to encourage those individuals to take up those supports. When it comes to the crime aspect of public intoxication, drug use, all the issues that are criminal, that’s when we definitely need to have the presence of police that are downtown and are dealing with these bad behaviours, deterring them, and ensuring that this is not acceptable behaviour in our downtown or in our city in general.

Is the alternative response program helping at all with that, Shawna?

Nelson: We have different layers of presence. Of course, we have the community support officers that are there only to deescalate and point people towards those support programs that I mentioned. We do have the Indigenous Peacekeeper Program, that is two individuals dedicated to downtown, that again are about deescalation and helping them and pointing them in the right direction for these support services. The alternative response officers are great, however, they are unable to ticket. They are unable to actually arrest and detain, but they do call the next level, which is police. We have a shortage. We’ve got police that are out there, but we need more of them trained in being downtown. We at the Downtown Saskatoon Business Improvement District also have hired private security to assist and support the Saskatoon police in regards to dealing with some of those non-emergency things, such as individuals that are congregating in a corner, five to 10 of them that may be engaged in drug use or maybe drinking and telling them that is illegal. It’s not acceptable, and to pick up and carry on and to find themselves a place where there’s air conditioning and there’s water and there’s washrooms and showers which there is for them.