Disgusted by transients’ illicit activities in the secluded alcoves of Mill Plain Boulevard’s sound wall, Hough neighborhood residents are pushing back by scrubbing things down and lighting them up.
A neighborhood association meeting this summer drew dozens of concerned residents, city staff members and two Vancouver City Councilors. They’d had enough of the litter, graffiti, drug use, defecation and sexual activity that had been happening for years in the beautifully tiled alcoves set between their houses and Mill Plain. It was time for action.
Since then, “all kinds of wonderfully awesome things have happened,” Hough resident Nancy Schultz, 66, said last week.
Five neighbors formed a clean-up team to pick up trash in the alcoves and haul away garbage at a homeless camp beside the wall. The neighborhood association donated reflective safety vests emblazoned with “I ? Hough” on the back. Armed with grabbers, gloves, trash bags and a disposal box for syringes, Schultz, Dale and Janice Ruland, Heidi Owens and Dave Kramer clean up cigarette butts, feces, needles, discarded clothing and food containers every Monday morning.
The alcove-cleaning team tells the homeless people they encounter what they’re doing and asks them to pick up after themselves. As a result, the mounds of trash that used to accumulate in the alcoves haven’t been as much of a problem, Schultz said.
“Word has gotten out on the street. People are being more respectful,” she said.
The awesomeness doesn’t stop there. Local businesses and public agencies got involved. Waste Connections donated a 96-gallon trash can and weekly collection service. C-Tran installed garbage cans at the bus stops by the wall. The neighbors are working on obtaining grants for dog waste collecting stations and cigarette disposal containers, and they’re hoping someone will donate a used golf cart to carry supplies to their clean-up sites.
Vancouver city workers recently installed 20-foot-tall motion-sensor LED lights in all three alcoves at Markle Avenue, Harney Street and Grant Street. The lights will be on at 50 percent power until they detect motion, and then they’ll illuminate at 100 percent.
Clark Public Utilities invested $6,460 in the project, which paid for the streetlight poles (with an anti-graffiti coating), controls and vandal-resistant light shields. Columbia Pacific Sales, a distributor for lighting manufacturers, donated the LED luminaires (valued at $1,500) and helped obtain other materials at lower prices. The city’s labor cost $3,330.
Bill Hibbs, commercial programs manager at Clark Public Utilities, said his agency got involved because it was a good fit for a pilot project. Clark Public Utilities has never used this combination of technology before, and this project provides a test site that potential customers can view, he said.
“Trying to restore those areas and give them back to the neighborhood is an important thing,” Hibbs added.
The Hough Neighborhood Association is reimbursing the city $750 toward the lighting project from its street mural fund. Cadet Manufacturing has offered to reimburse the neighborhood for the expense, Schultz said.
It’s a happy turnabout for the West Vancouver neighborhood. In the 15 years since the city finished the Mill Plain extension project and built a $715,000 sound wall between the Hough neighborhood and the road, the wall’s alcoves became an increasing headache with their appeal to transients and vandals. The thousands of ceramic tiles decorated by community members became a frequent target for graffiti, and the wall’s built-in lights and bricks were smashed. Neighbors said some people would even use the privacy of the alcoves to sort mail stolen from residents’ mailboxes.
Finally, following a May 26 article in The Columbian about the problem, residents mobilized.
Schultz is in the beginning stages of trying to get the alcoves’ wall tiles restored, repaired or replaced. Perhaps some of the people who made tiles when they were in elementary school years ago would be willing to make new ones, she said.
City Councilor Alishia Topper, who lives in the Hough neighborhood, said the neighbors already had come up with ideas for how to remedy the matter by the time the city got involved.
Many neighborhoods have a similar issues, but they totally rely on the city to come up with the solutions, she said. This group of neighbors, however, “were very resourceful and committed, and the committed part makes such a big difference,” Topper said.
“I think this is a perfect example of how volunteers can make an impact,” she said.
