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After more than a year and 50 neighbourhood meetings with the 21 Park Rd. respite shelter operators, area residents say they’ve had to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves from the vagrants and drug dealers that have been lured to the neighbourhood.

“A lot of people are taking their own actions,” said Janet Lambert, a resident of the surrounding Collier-Asquith neighbourhood.”We see many people barricading themselves.”

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She said their small community — just north of Church and Bloor Sts. — has been “inundated” with people needing help and that has resulted in vandalism, overflowing garbage, discarded drug and alcohol paraphernalia (including harm reduction kits), noise at night, overuse of the surrounding parks and urine and feces on their properties.

Lambert says they recently learned that private school Branksome Hall had to install razor wire — like what we used to see on the Hogan’s Heroes TV show — on top of their fence to keep the vagrants from climbing over and exposing themselves to students.