Cemetery encampment cleaned up

An encampment at a Woodstock cemetery was recently cleaned up by staff after police attended to remove those living there. Councillor Deb Tait is asking the city to reimburse the cemetery for their efforts. (Contributed photo)

Lee Griffi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Another encampment in the City of Woodstock has been cleaned up but this one was on private property meaning once the inhabitants were escorted off by police, the cleanup was the cemetery’s responsibility.

Several people set up the camp at the Baptist Cemetery for about three weeks. Police weren’t sure if it was actually on CN land which is adjacent to the property, but after confirming it was on cemetery property they stepped in. The mess left behind was the responsibility of the cemetery to take care of.

John Dobbs is one of the caretakers of the Knox Presbyterian Cemetery which is adjoined to the Baptist property. He helped with the cleanup and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“The fellow who works with me came over and gave me a hand. It took us about 10 hours in total. We just bagged it. We threw all the needles, condoms, methadone and naloxone kits. There was all sorts of garbage and drug paraphernalia.”

Dobbs added he wasn’t alarmed with what he found but was taken aback by how bad the mess was.

“I wasn’t really surprised. I knew they were using but I was surprised they would just throw it everywhere. There were four or five tents in total. There were shopping carts filled with garbage.”

He said they also found bicycles, a popcorn machine, barbeque, children’s toys and two inflatable swimming pools.

"It took us about an hour to clean a five-foot square piece. We couldn’t move an inch or two without picking a piece of garbage up. We had to be careful with the needles and little pieces of glass from pipes. I think that bothered us more than anything. There was garbage thrown anywhere and everywhere.”

Once the garbage was piled up the person who cuts the grass at the cemetery donated his time and efforts to load it all onto his truck, take it to the dump and pay the tipping fee.

While there are supports available for homeless people in Woodstock, Dobbs felt more resources are needed to help those with mental health issues, something the city used to have.

“They should have never closed the Ontario Regional Center down. We had all these people being looked after then the government said it was too expensive to look after them that way. Now the municipality is paying the price.”

He added a lot of homeless people don’t want to be helped which doesn’t make the situation in Woodstock any easier to improve.

Councillor Deb Tait tabled a motion at the last regular council meeting that $500 be provided to the cemetery staff who cleaned up the mess left behind after police stepped in to have the inhabitants removed. It will be voted on at the Nov. 7 meeting. Tait would like to see the money come from the Mayor’s Social Well-Being Task Force.

“It was an absolute mess. Because the encampment was on private property they had to look after the cleanup themselves. The gentlemen who did it, two are in their 70s and one in his 80s. I asked them how long it took them. The $500 won’t cover all of it, but at least it’s something.”

She added more needs to be done.

“We haven’t done anything about these encampments so part of the responsibility falls on the city.”

Tait explained the cemetery workers weren’t so much upset about having to clean the mess left behind, it was more the fact homeless people had set up shop there where people visit their departed loved ones.

“They were stealing items off of the headstones. That was the hard part, what these people did in there.”

Woodstock City Council spent $100,000 cleaning up an abandoned encampment at the end of Clarke Street and then added another $100,000 the encampment budget line as a result.