Authorities in one Southern Ontario city have come across what is surely one of their stranger discoveries in recent memory: a labyrinth of holes and tunnels carved under public property and hidden from view.
The Hamilton Police Service shared their peculiar find with the public on Wednesday, explaining that while performing a proactive check on a tent encampment in the municipality’s Gage Park, they spotted a large, human-made hole that ended up being a whopping six feet deep.
Upon further investigation, they also found a concealed network of underground infrastructure that those who had been living in the public green space had crafted.
Tunnels had been dug to share electricity from a generator — which was also hidden in a hole in the ground — between multiple tents.
Extension cords and other makeshift electrical lines were found strategically laid out under the soil surrounding the giant hole, including one that eventually connected the generator back to a City lamppost.
“Upon closer inspection, Police found a series of tunnels… to allow for extension cords and other electrical wiring to connect to multiple tents in this location” … powered by a generator dug into another hole, connected to a City light pole.
PARDON ME? #HamOnt https://t.co/tcBT0VYcVU
— Carly Conway (@carlyconwayTV) December 11, 2024
Though a rather creative solution, the setup is indeed considered “mischief to the property,” with the man responsible now facing charges of mischief over $5,000, along with failure to comply with a probation order and multiple drug-related charges for possessing methamphetamine, fentanyl and another opioid, hydromorphone dilaudid, with intent to sell.
“Due to safety concerns, the remaining tents within the location were relocated and the holes have been fenced off until the city makes the necessary repairs to the ground,” the force wrote in a news release about the incident.
In the flurry of online response to the news, it appears that some members of the public were already long aware of the tunnels.
Many expressed disdain with the destruction of public property amid higher-than-ever tensions surrounding houseless residents and the tent encampments that have exploded in various cities in the region, including Toronto, since the pandemic.
Just one day earlier, local police also shut down an improvised “drug shack” that was hidden in a forested area near a CP railroad line, apprehending two suspects and a dog along with multiple grams of methamphetamine, fentanyl, bullets and a replica gun.
blogTO has reached out to Hamilton Police for more information about what was unearthed at Gage Park and how the force is addressing tent encampments and the houseless crisis more generally.
