Marie Hay has lived in the Millar Addition since 1990 and things have certainly changed since Moccasin Flats formed on Lower Patricia Boulevard.
“Obviously there’s good and bad,” Hay said. “Probably the most positive thing to have come out of it is certainly my awareness of the tremendous needs for the unhoused people has grown immensely and that’s been very humbling because hithertofore they were unseen, unheard and ignored. Now they are seen and they are heard and they are not ignored.”
This increased or renewed awareness of the shared, common humanity where all of us deserve respect, dignity, housing, safety, is huge and that’s positive, too, Hay added.
Another positive is increased cohesion within the Millar Addition neighbourhood.
“We have a private Facebook community where we share things – not just about Moccasin Flats but also about the bears,” Hay said. “Just different things like that. The increased sense of community is positive.”
As for the negative, there is a decrease in the feeling of safety, Hay added.
“If something isn’t nailed down to the ground, it’s gone,” Hay said. “There are prowlers at all times of the day and night. We just accept it.”
It is important that the needs of the Moccasin Flats residents are met, Hay added.
“And I think it’s important the needs of the Millar Addition residents are met as well,” Hay said. “How do we balance those is the very difficult question. I don’t have the answer.”
When looking at the dwellings at Moccasin Flats many have surrounded themselves with barriers, Hay said.
“That is to increase their sense of safety because they don’t feel safe down there and that’s the same up here,” Hay explained. “We don’t feel safe.”
Hay’s main concern is fire.
“We have so many fires that I’ve lost count and they are so close to us,” Hay said.
There is only a 50-foot brush-and-tree filled embankment between Upper Patricia Boulevard and Lower Patricia Boulevard, Hay noted.
“In the summer it’s dry as tinder and some of the fires have come up so close and if those trees kindle the whole first line of housing is going to go, if not more,” Hay said. “My most basic fear is the fire hazard.”
“I do actually love my brothers and sisters who are down there,” Hay said. “I wish we could live in harmony together. I think that there are a lot of people in Prince George, which I find very hopeful, who are working to support and help the individuals who are unhoused.”
But there’s another side to it, Hay added.
“When we hear gunshots going off in the middle of the night, which is a regular occurrence, and one of the last fires they had I was witnessing it and people were yelling to their comrades, ‘get away, get away, there’s live ammunition in there,’ and then you heard the ammunition go off so we know there’s guns and ammunition down there and it's scary,” Hay said.
