Victoria’s mayor has unveiled a $10-million plan to boost public safety in the city’s downtown core, which she says will have a visible impact before the end of the year.
The money will go primarily to hiring new police and bylaw officers, temporary housing, and public works to ensure “the cleanliness, hygiene, look, feel, atmosphere of the whole city.”
The initiative is meant to enact the first steps of the city’s recently completed Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan.
“That plan will unfold over a number of years, as you know, but there’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s an urgency to certain aspects of it,” Mayor Marianne Alto said Wednesday.
“There is a part of the city that is taking advantage of vulnerable people, and they have not gotten the message that is not tolerated in the city.”
The city’s long-term plan envisions a larger enforcement role for bylaw officers, and Wednesday’s announcement includes $1.9 million towards that goal.
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“We’re going to immediately put enough resources into that to hire a dozen new staff, people who will be able to execute their jobs more frequently, more intensively, more regularly throughout the downtown,” Alto said.
The plan also includes $1.35 million to hire another nine police officers to focus on the downtown core, including Pandora and Princess avenues, which have been the epicentre of addiction and homelessness in the city.
Victoria Police Chief Del Manak said he would be working to “fill these vacancies as quickly as possible.”
The city is also matching about a quarter million dollars in provincial funding to the C-STEP program aimed at tackling non-violent crime.
The plan includes a $390,000 boost to Victoria’s public works budget to address the “huge task” of street cleaning, along with $4.86 million to repair and rehabilitate Pandora and Princess avenues.
It also includes more than $3 million for “temporary” housing solutions to fill the gap while the province works on more permanent facilities.
“We do know that if we don’t step in, at least on a temporary basis for a couple of years, and create some destinations for these folks, they’re still just going to languish where they are,” Alto said.
Alto said the city has committed to not raising property taxes to enact the plan and will instead shift money from existing programs and services.
That includes postponing some planned upgrades to Royal Athletic Park and the Centennial Square revitalization project and the use of millions from various city reserve funds.
City council is expected to ratify the safety and well-being plan on Thursday, after it was approved in principle last month.
“We must do this, and I think the fact that I’ve been able to stand before you and tell you not just what we’re going to do, but how we’re going to pay for it is an indication that it will happen,” Alto said.
“There’ll be many challenges along the way, but we will surmount them.”
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