New street addresses cause problems for hamlet residents

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Wheatland County hamlets were assigned new street addresses recently, creating problems for some residents. In Rosebud, both street names and numbers were changed.
“In Rosebud, special requests were made to re-name some of the streets (to honour area families),” said Lisa Bastarache, Wheatland County communications officer in an email. “But the main project was to create formal addressing systems that make sense throughout the county’s hamlets, so that ambulances, fire and police are able to locate emergencies.
“Alberta Health Services… updated their information with the new road and address data in spring 2017,” she added. “Wheatland County fire departments have also been provided with maps displaying street names and addresses. Alberta Health Services has also maintained PDFs of old address data during the transition, in case residents do not provide their new address when seeking emergency services.
But not all service providers operate that way.
LaVerne Erickson, a Rosebud resident, said his first problem occurred when Alberta First Call couldn’t provide a land location he requested. Then when he gave his bank his new address, UPS wouldn’t deliver a parcel from the bank, though UPS has delivered to his house for decades. Erickson had to go to the Calgary airport and pick up the parcel.
Sue Miller, another Rosebud resident, has had similar problems.
“Now when we get a parcel, no one will deliver to our house, because we don’t exist,” Miller said. “Even though they have been delivering packages to my door for over 20 years now, UPS and Purolator won’t deliver because our address doesn’t exist in their system.
“I run a bed-and-breakfast in Rosebud,” she added. “What address do I give my guests? The new one? It doesn’t register with GPS or Google Maps. Or my old address, which doesn’t work once you are in town because the street name and house number have changed?
“I do appreciate (the county) listened to the townspeople to change our streets to historical names to honour those who have gone before us. But I do believe some more homework should have happened and steps (taken) towards changing the addresses of our village before we were wiped off the Google map… maybe for now the county (could) put the old and the new street signs up till Google, GPS and the delivery companies catch on.”
Erickson said she called the county and spoke to a person responsible for address assignments. She was told nothing could be done until the county took the lead in providing proper site coordinates, or Google remaps the hamlets.
But Bastarache said the problem doesn’t lie with the county.
“We have contacted several courier companies, including UPS,” she said. “But they apparently do not have map updates sent to them by the municipalities. Instead, they want to get updates from their clients, and expect the customer to contact them if they have issues with parcel data and, at that time, they will update their data.”
Bastarache recommends residents inform courier companies they’re giving a new address.
Erickson also suggests residents update addresses carefully. Before giving a company a new address, he encouraged residents to ask if the new address exists in their database, and what would happen if a new address was provided.
“If any resident has a specific question or concern, they can contact us at any time,” said Bastarache.
When Miller contacted the county, she said, “He said there was nothing he could do; the companies in question weren’t interested in changing anything. So here we sit in between the cracks of a broken system. I hope someone will find us soon.”