Campers and needles: Growing problem in some Vancouver parks

His nickname is Razor and he's one of many people camping overnight in a Vancouver city park.

"There's a lot of homeless, they put up their tents at night and take them down in the daytime," he said.

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As the weather improves the number ofcampers showing up in downtown parks starts to spike.So does the number of discarded needles.

Bylaws forbid people from camping overnight in city parks, but bylaw officers take a "soft" approach, making sure campers leave during the day.

Razor hasbeen pitching his tent in Andy Livingston Park for two weeks and packs his belongings into a well-organized cart every morning. Heevencarries a broom to keep things neat, insisting it's not campers who are leaving behind all the used needles.

"People come herewho don't sleep here and make a mess," he said. "They drink or do their dope and we get blamed for it.It's not us, but we got to take the heat for it. Weclean it up anyway. That's why I always got a broom."

On Wednesday morning park rangers collectedover 40 discarded needles on their daily sweep of Andy Livingston.It has been identified as a "hot spot park" which meansstaff aredeployedevery morning to clean up whatever hasbeen left behind fromthe night before.

"Two rangers go there everymorningat eight o'clockand they do a sweep of the park, usually with a community policing officer," said Vancouver Parks director HowardNormann, who agrees it's not necessarilythe campers causingthe needle problem.

City staff have considered installing needle disposal boxes inAndy Livingston, but Normann doesn't think that's asolution.

The park has a number of sports fields, and the International Village Elementary School will soon open there too.

"The idea of tryingneedle boxesin the park may help but we don't want to start encouraging people to be picking up needles themselves and depositing them because that's a danger as well," he said. "And the person that comes there at two in the morningand shoots up behind a hedge isn't necessarilygoing to walk over anddeposita needle in a needle box."

Last month a mother of a student attending Lord Roberts Annex in the West End found seven needles discarded overnight in the school garden right beside Nelson Park, an area frequented by overnight campers.

Normann says after Nelson Park was identified as a hot spot park crews were dispatched and theneedleproblem seems to have less of a problem.

But he also saysit's likely whoever was discardingneedles at the schoolis now doing the same somewhere else.

"People move around, people move into the city on an ongoing basis. One day there could be a 100 needles in one location, the next day it could be ten."