Stolen tools worth over $3,000 were returned to their rightful owner on Sunday thanks to the Integrated Homelessness and Addictions Response Center.
Executive Director of IHARC, Jordan Stevenson said he was able to come across what he believed were stolen power tools.
“Knowing the likelihood of them being stolen was fairly high, I started reaching out to various groups to see if there was any missing tools reported.”
Stevenson came across the owner who identified them and they met up at the Cobourg Police Service on Sunday afternoon.
The person who turned the tools over to Stevenson said that he’d done enough bad things in his life and wants to do better.
Stevenson has found that traditionally stolen items are a “crime of opportunity.”
“They (the stolen items) usually get exchanged for illicit substances. It’s a problem with the overall drug crisis. The addiction is going to get fueled one way or another.”
“It spirals – and has got into all these petty crimes that we see.”
Stevenson hopes that the trend will start to trend backwards.
“Cobourg Police is very diligently working on crimes of this nature specifically and we’re extremely grateful to work alongside them.”
IHARC is not enforcement related, but “it’s just by the nature of the job we come across items such as these and will happily pass them on to police when possible.”
The tools along with a number of tools were stolen from the east of Cobourg in September.
A number of tools remain outstanding, but the owner of the tools told Today’s Northumberland he was extremely grateful the tools were recovered.