Faced with an elderly man with health issues who refused to leave the shed where he was living, and with winter looming, bylaw officer Stephen Lanegraff knew ticketing him wasn’t the answer.
It was the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) officer’s compassionate response to the file, which was an exceptional case in an unfortunately growing trend of precarious housing, that earned him a leadership award from the Local Government Compliance and Enforcement Association earlier this year.
If the organization sounds familiar, it’s because Gibsons bylaw officers Sue Booth and Tamara Jaswal also received awards from the organization this year, for helping evacuate people from a house on fire. Given the association includes somewhere around 750 members, it’s highly unusual for such awards to go to the same area.
“There's only a couple of awards given out across a really large cross-section of people,” said Krissy Kirkpatrick, SCRD chief bylaw enforcement officer, who has been part of the association since 2005. “I think it really is an anomaly, the fact that we had three from the Sunshine Coast this year –– that's never happened before.”
Lanegraff joined the SCRD in October 2021, previously serving as a bylaw officer at Village of Midway and City of Greenwood.
“I’m just really proud to have Stephen on staff,” said Kirkpatrick, who nominated Lanegraff for the award.
What happened?
Last fall, bylaw received a complaint that there was an “elderly, health-compromised male living in an unsafe living condition” in the West Howe Sound area. The man was living in a Home Depot-style shed that wasn’t connected to water and an extension cord provided the only electricity.
Upon investigating, Lanegraff found an elderly couple at odds with one another –– the other spouse also had health challenges –– and the person in question “chose to more or less live in this shed, to not live with the spouse.”
“I tried to coax him into the house. He wouldn't go. I tried to coax him into support. He wouldn't go into support,” said Lanegraff. He was at a loss as to what to do, but he didn’t think a ticket would motivate the person to move.
So, Lanegraff got to work reaching out to other authorities, the Gibsons fire department, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), “and just tried to work more as a community to see if we could all collectively come together to get this individual into some sort of supportive housing.”
One day, the Gibsons and District Volunteer Fire Department fire prevention officer and Lanegraff visited the home and found the elderly man had fallen and couldn’t get back up. The man finally agreed to get care and go to the hospital, from where Lanegraff was able to speak with a nurse from VCH, who got him into a short-term situation for supportive housing.
The matter took six or seven months to resolve, Lanegraff estimates.
While Lanegraff characterized the specific situation as “uncommon,” given the person’s age and health challenges, it’s unfortunately part of a trend that’s grown over his four years here. “It's become a regular occurrence where you'll get a complaint for someone living in an unhoused or unsafe living situation, whether it be an RV or some sort of backyard makeshift tent or cabin or something.”
“This is something we're seeing more and more because of the housing crisis,” said Kirkpatrick. “We tend to see people pushed into precarious living situations.”
This includes in parks and forests. “It's difficult and it's sad, because we know that there's a housing crisis, and so enforcement is not always the first step,” said Kirkpatrick.
In the public eye
Since Lanegraff’s first bylaw job in the Kootenays, the better part of a decade ago, his understanding of what a bylaw officer is and does has evolved.
“I think it's a crucial role in local government to have officers out there,” said Lanegraff. “Whether it be…parking, zoning, short-term rental.”
And, while “it's a great profession for people to get into,” Lanegraff notes that bylaw officers are often seen as the “bad people” in the eyes of the public. “We don't really get all five fingers when we get waved at most times, so when we do, we’re shocked.”
Kirkpatrick concurred that as bylaw, they often face negative scrutiny. “So when something comes along that's really positive, it's something that I really think needs to be celebrated.”
(The community agreed –– when the news of Lanegraff’s award was shared to the Sunshine Coast BC Canada Facebook page, it received more than 600 likes and 50 comments with congratulations and thank yous.)
“These guys and girls really are ambassadors to our community. They make the community more livable for everybody,” said Kirkpatrick. She noted that they’re the ones who get between the disgruntled neighbours, and they’re the ones people can call when they don’t want to make the uncomfortable confrontation.
It’s not an easy job, Kirkpatrick said, but among their three bylaw officers (two full-time and one part-time) and clerk, they have a professional, tight-knit crew. “We debrief at the end of the day, and we try to laugh off the difficult [situations] that we see.
“Some of them do weigh on us at night or into the weeks that come. We do have to make some really difficult decisions, but having a really good staff and a really good crew just makes it easy.”
Breaking down the silos
What lessons came out of this situation? “Being the officer on the ground and in that situation, when you're dealt with something like this, try to think outside the box,” said Lanegraff. “My biggest thing is, how can we help an individual? How can we make the situation better?”
Kirkpatrick points to reaching out to other members of their community, like VCH or the fire department. “When you work together, you can usually find solutions, rather than working siloed our departments,” said Kirkpatrick. “We're all kind of doing a similar job. And everybody …they have their own areas of expertise. But when you start talking together and working together, I think that's when great ideas come out of …unfortunate circumstances.”
“You might not be able to do it on your own, but you definitely help facilitate,” said Lanegraff. “Whether it be a call or an email or just even a lead to somebody right, to put them in that driver's seat, to hopefully get them to that right person.
“I do it all the time, whether it be an email or a phone call,” said Lanegraff. “We all share, we all help each other when we can.”
A line from the association president at the award ceremony still sticks with Lanegraff. “Stephen saved or protected a human life.”
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” said Lanegraff. “And I was honoured to be a recipient of the award.”
