Crime mapping:
At Monday night’s City council meeting, councillors approved for crime mapping to be made public as a one-year pilot.
Most of the municipalities in Alberta are currently making some form of crime mapping available.
Information shared would be generalized in terms of location, so specific addresses are not identifiable.
The crime mapping data includes theft from or of a motor vehicle, break and enter, theft over or under $5,000, mischief and missing persons.
Crime mapping will provide crime data for the last 14 days of data, so data older than 14 days is automatically removed.
Following the one-year pilot, a report will be developed to assess the impacts of the pilot with a further recommendation being presented to council.
Unsheltered Outreach and Engagement:
City council approved an endorsement of up to $250,000 from the Outreach and Support Services Initiatives (OSSI) for an assertive street engagement team for Red Deer.
Safe Harbour will receive this enhancement as a contract amendment with the additional funding for a period of one year.
The pilot will be helpful in determining the effectiveness of a dedicated engagement effort with the target population to take advantage of shelter and housing support programs.
The goal is to house those in need, specifically with those sleeping rough within Red Deer.
It is also hoped that it will help reduce the amount of City designated funds required for the ongoing rough sleeper encampment clean up.
“This is a priority for us to be able to expand the outreach and engagement team for connection, to be able to build trust, to be able to hopefully connect those folks not only with housing but other supports such as mental health, addictions and of course housing supports,” said Coun. Dianne Wyntjes.
“These folks are basically prioritized and are provided the supports once they get into housing,” said Wyntjes.
Coun. Johnston said it’s going to take a specialized team and specialized relationships.
“The bottom line is we’re spending somewhere in the vicinity of $600,000 in camp clean up, the safety and the social issues around that. That can’t continue and this is an opportunity for us to address it from a socially conscious and strategic perspective.”
