New hotline to crack down on crime in North End neighbourhood

People living in the William Whyte neighbourhood hope an anonymous tip line will help crack down on crime in the community.

A new anonymous tip line will help to make one North End community a safer place to live.

The William Whyte Residents Association is setting up a hotline to help deal with drugs and crime in the area.

“We have a lot of things going on in the area,” said Darrell Warren, the association’s president, in an interview on Wednesday.

“We’ve experienced a lot of fires, so there’s a lot of derelict, boarded-up piles of rubble…We’ve got drug houses in the area.”

According to Warren, the phone line will be monitored 24 hours a day and will allow residents to report drug houses and other crimes without fear of retribution. From there, organizers of the tip line will report the crime to police.

Warren said the tip line has been made anonymous as many residents are fearful.

“A lot of people are afraid of these people, and they have to live next door to them,” Warren said.

“They’re afraid they might go ahead and do things to them, like shoot up their house or something crazy like that.”

Warren notes a similar hotline has seen success in the Point Douglas neighbourhood.

“They’ve shut down numerous drug houses in the area, and basically the drug dealers move out of the area for that reason,” he said.

Warren said his organization has applied for money through the province’s forfeiture fund and expects costs for the first year of the tipline to be around $20,000.

“It’s going to make a difference to revitalize the area, and we’ve got to tackle the crime,” he said.

“We’ve got to tackle fires in the area, and we will go ahead, and we will be successful with this.”