Penticton homeless shelter has feces thrown on their front steps

Photo: Contributed

The Compass House Shelter in Penticton got a nasty message on their front steps Tuesday morning after someone threw a large pile of feces on the property.

Tony Laing, the operator of the homeless shelter said he was speechless after getting a message from his staff that an individual had been caught on camera between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m., who brought "over a bucket of dog crap and dumped it on their doorstep."

“I can't believe somebody actually did this....Just to do something like this in bright daylight suddenly people feel free to express themselves this way, that's not normal discourse in any society,” Laing said.

“The amount of rhetoric that's been stirred up in the community about the homeless situation, it's getting pretty disheartening that suddenly people feel free to be this discriminatory and heartless.”

Posts started circulating on social media on the incident as well, alleging a local business owner did the dirty deed, but Castanet has been unable at this point to confirm that and is awaiting surveillance footage.

“It's very disheartening and uncalled for, there's no excuse...We reach out to our neighbours on a regular basis to discuss any problems and issues and this is not the way to deal with it.”

Laing added the team worked to set up regular meetings with all of their neighbours and have only had a couple of their immediate neighbours participate, most of the neighbourhood has chosen not to.

“We really want to work with our neighbours, we don't want things to get to this level. Things only get worse. We've seen an escalation with interactions with the public increasing and it's getting out of hand,” Laing said.

“I know the staff are disheartened.”

The incident has been reported to the RCMP.

“We understand people's concerns about the issues people have in Penticton, but this is not a step in the right direction, this is a step backwards,” Laing added. ”This is something that can't be tolerated.”