Safety partnership’s library proposal a win-win-win

Opinion

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This article was published 24/01/2025 (249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the world of government services, it is the rarest of all creatures: an idea that is so good and sensible that it solves multiple problems at a reasonable cost.

This week, during council’s executive policy committee meeting, the Downtown Community Safety Partnership, a non-governmental group that helps to patrol the downtown, asked the city for permission to allow its community outreach workers to operate out of a now-unused space adjacent to the lobby of the Millennium Library.

The space was formerly known as community connections, a social service hub staffed by librarians and community workers that helped people suffering from homelessness, addictions and mental-health issues connect with a broad array of services. Despite the fact it helped nearly 30,000 people each year, the city decided to close community connections to save the $628,000 it cost to operate.

Enter the Downtown Community Safety Partnership with its good idea.

Why not allow the group to place its own, trained outreach workers in the vacant space and provide most, if not all, of the same services being provided before? Oh, and at no cost to the city.

On Friday, EPC voted to approve the proposal by the safety partnership. It will next go to council for a final vote.

This proposal makes so much sense from two different perspectives.

Off the top, it allows the Millennium Library to continue offering much-needed support to people who need help. Libraries in downtown Winnipeg and downtowns beyond have, in recent years, evolved into multi-faceted social service hubs to meet the needs of vulnerable populations that congregate in core areas.

The proposal also provides the successful downtown partnership with a storefront presence — something it does not have — from which to continue doing its good work.

The DCSP is a partnership between the province, city, Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Service, Winnipeg Police Service and True North Sports and Entertainment. Since April 2020, outreach workers have patrolled the downtown 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide a broad array of assistance: well-being checks on the homeless, co-ordinating medical attention for physical injuries of people suffering from mental-health crises, support for downtown businesses and “courtesy walks” to help people downtown get from point A to B safely.

Last year, the safety partnership also transported 4,200 vulnerable people to shelters and health-care facilities.

Add it all up and you have an idea of such enormous value and potential that the only remaining question is whether city council and some hyperactive third parties can accept it at face value or — as has been the case on this file — find ways to screw it up.

There are early signs some are working on ways to derail the proposal.

Mayor Scott Gillingham, whose office worked directly with DCSP to formulate the proposal, is obviously on-board. He said this week the city already provides the safety partnership with $420,000 and the Millennium proposal would not require additional funding.

But what of the rest of council?

Some, such as Coun. Vivian Santos (Point Douglas), have tacitly supported community connections but rejected the idea of cutting other programs to reopen it. Others, such as Coun. Evan Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo), the chair of the property and development committee, have in the past argued a social service hub was incompatible with library services.

Then there is Millennium for All, an advocacy organization that has fought against reductions in funding for the downtown library. That group wants community connections restored to its previous form and is skeptical of the new proposal.

One representative of Millennium for All said the proposal would bring a “police-oriented” presence to the library, which is not what advocates want.

Let’s dispense with some of the misconceptions critics could use to derail this worthy idea.

DCSP is not a “police-oriented” presence. Its outreach workers are not trained in law enforcement, they are trained to navigate social services and intervene with addictions and mental-health crises. They wear a uniform of sorts, but look a lot more like couriers than police officers.

And for the record, the library is absolutely the right place to provide this kind of support.

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Millennium remains one of the last truly open, public spaces in the downtown. All kinds of people who need help connecting with public services already use the library, which has computers, printers and a host of staff to help people apply for identification, government support, housing and health care. For many newcomers, the library is their first stop in building a new life in Canada.

Finally, thanks to the fact that the safety partnership is already widely supported by government and other entities, the proposal to move into space in the Millennium Library comes at no additional cost to the city.

It’s win (for the city, which is tight for money), win (for DCSP, which needs a storefront presence), and win for the people downtown who need help navigating public services.

Who would try to derail a win-win-win proposition like this? One can only hope that it’s no one.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.