City seeks to expose root causes of crime

There are many great social agencies doing wonderful work in Brandon when it comes to community safety and well-being, says the city’s Shannon Saltarelli, but she wants to take a deeper dive into the root causes of crime and social issues, with a new pilot project endorsed by the Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention.

“We don’t want to diminish the good work that’s already being done in our community around different projects that are trying to take action, but it just feels like we’re just continuously throwing on a band aid or putting out a fire and not really getting into why we’re in the state that we’re in around safety and well being in our community,” said Saltarelli, who is the community housing and wellness coordinator with the City of Brandon.

“Rather than pulling people out of the river downstream, go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. That’s the premise around the community safety and well being plan,” Saltarelli said.

The Community Safety and Well-Being plan (CSWB) is offered to cities by the Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention, which is a not-for-profit membership organization that brings together cities, municipalities, and Indigenous communities from across the country and helps them find ways to prevent and reduce violence and crime, with training provided for those who are interested.

Saltarelli and four other team members took their training two months ago, which included learning the benefits of a CSWB plan, and how to get the community involved.

What it is not, added Saltarelli, is a city-driven initiative.

“This will be a plan that is created by the community, for the community that is going to be owned by the community, it’s not a plan that the city is going to own and try and implement. We can’t do this work on our own and we’re not the experts in these fields. So, we’re going to leverage the agencies and partnerships and organizations that are the experts in the fields,” Saltarelli said.

Several locations across the country have adopted their own CSWB plan including, Halifax, N.S., Regina, Sask., Edmonton, Alta., and Victoria, B.C.

Five years ago, Ontario passed a law making it mandatory for all municipalities develop a CSWB plan.

In Manitoba, the city of Thompson released its own plan almost two years ago, in October 2021. A year earlier, it received a $35,000 grant from the province’s Department of Justice to hire a consultant to help develop the strategy.

An advisory committee was created in that northern Manitoba community with representatives from more than 30 different organizations that identified six areas crucial to improving local community safety and wellbeing, including youth-involved crime, housing and homelessness, and support for those with alcoholism.

Brandon’s mayor Jeff Fawcett said he learned of the initiative during talks with his Thompson counterpart, Mayor Colleen Smook.

“I went over the Thompson model, I looked at everything they had done, and even though we’re on a bit of a larger scale, there were not that many dissimilar things,” Fawcett said.

Fawcett added, he connected with province’s justice department to show interest, and now it will be up to Saltarelli and her team to take over.

“The only role we played was — this is what we’d like to see as a community. But it will be community-owned, it’s about working together, aligning with one another, and taking a holistic look at things,” said Fawcett.

Tonight, for the first time since completing her training, Saltarelli will present the explanation and outline of the CSWB plan for Brandon city councillors at their regular council meeting.

The project is in its “infancy stages,” Saltarelli said, and this is the first step — giving council an update, which will be followed by public consultation to find the gaps that people are falling into.

“The other thing about this plan, it brings in the business community as well because they have ideas, they have solutions, and we want to bring people around the table that normally aren’t in a room together,” said Saltarelli.

We want to collaborate with the good folks working tirelessly to take care of our community, but this isn’t just sector driven with social agencies or police. It’s going to bring in groups that have other perspectives, which is very unique,” Saltarelli said.

Saltarelli and Fawcett agree they are not trying to “re-invent the wheel”, and both said there have been projects in the past that investigate social issues and crime prevention, but added, they’re optimistic about making improvements in their city.

Once complete, the CSWN plan will identify key areas that need focus with action items listed and team members assigned for each of those items.

“If you look at some other communities’ plans, you’ll see action items around intimate partner violence, or action items around food security, housing, and could be some around restorative justice, or recidivism, or reintegration into society, different things like that.

“So, it’s going to be really interesting to see what comes out of ours, and how our plan will differ from other communities. But the plans that I have looked at seem to have some pretty common threads throughout them and this is a really cool project for us to be part of, so, I am very excited,” Saltarelli said.

Also, in council chambers tonight, city manager Ron Bowles will update council on the Downtown Wellness and Safety Task Force, which was initiated in late 2021.

The eleven members on the task force came up with ideas and ways to create a healthy downtown core, support local businesses and improve residents’ wellness and safety.

Last December, 10 recommendations were given to council, including working with Indigenous stakeholders to create transitional housing, establishing an Indigenous Wellness Centre, starting a mobile outreach unit to guide people to social and health services and building more housing. All were adopted by city council.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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