Detainee releases raise concerns over Chinatown being used as a ‘dumping ground’

People living and working in Edmonton’s Chinatown are speaking out over how people leaving correctional custody are being released into the inner city neighbourhood.

It comes after Global News obtained surveillance video showing several people getting out of corrections transport vans at different locations in the area north of downtown, where much of the city’s social services and homeless supports are concentrated.

Community leaders say the concern is not that people are being released from custody, but where and how those releases are happening — particularly when social service providers are closed.

One incident happened late Friday night near Kim Fat Market near 99 Street and 107 Avenue.

Kathryn Luu, interim executive director of the Chinatown Business Association, provided Global News with security footage showing a white corrections transport van pulling up near the business shortly before 10 p.m. Friday.

The video shows several people getting out of the van and walking onto the street.

Luu says she approached the corrections officer to ask what was happening, but the man refused to engage in conversation.

Luu questions why people were being released in the area late on a Friday night — a time when services were not open.

She said she would have preferred to see people handed over directly to a service provider, such as Hope Mission, the King Thunderbird Centre or the province’s Navigation and Support Centre.

“I do think that there is a better system that can help do handovers for people to get the necessary help that they need,” Luu suggested.

The situation adds another challenge for a neighbourhood already dealing with issues such as fires, vandalism, theft, people defecating and urinating in public, and other forms of social disorder.

Community leaders say the drop-off near Kim Fat Market does not appear to be isolated.

Earlier this month, surveillance video provided by the Yorkton Equity Group showed another person being released from a corrections van.

That incident happened in the morning hours in a private parking lot near Pacific Mall, just off 97 Street and 105 Avenue.