Full-on assault on downtown safety Patrols, crisis services bolstered during busy summer festival season By: Chris Kitching Posted: 12:44 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 9, 2024 Last Modified: 6:22 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 9, 2024 Updates

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Crisis outreach services and street patrols are being expanded in downtown Winnipeg this summer in a bid to make the much-maligned area safer for residents, workers and visitors.

The short-term measures were triggered, in part, by businesses’ calls for action and city officials’ discussions about how to tackle crime, drug addiction and mental health crises.

“We want to ensure that individuals who are struggling with addiction and mental health issues, or housing needs, have access to the necessary supports that they need to lead healthy and dignified lives,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said at a news conference Tuesday.

“At the same time, we cannot let unwell people determine the state of our downtown. We can’t be continually threatened by safety issues.”

Gillingham and Premier Wab Kinew said the problem is being tackled on two fronts. They aim to connect people with supports via community and compassionate outreach, and increase visibility with additional foot patrols during festivals and events.

The premier, who described it as an “emergency immediate response,” believes the measures will help to prevent violent crime and support those in need.

Gillingham said the measures came together quickly, following discussions involving the city’s emergency services, organizations such as the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone, and the premier.

The Manitoba government will spend $1 million on a voluntary sobering centre at N’Dinawemak — Our Relatives’ Place, an Indigenous-led, 24-7 homeless shelter and support centre at 190 Disraeli Fwy.

Officials said the money will pay for more staff — six paramedics, a mental-health worker and about seven shelter workers — and renovations to accommodate up to 50 more people who are intoxicated.

“This will mean that for the fire paramedic service, for police, for foot patrols like (downtown safety partnership) and others, when they encounter somebody who does need to be taken somewhere so that they can sober up, calm down (or not be) that challenge to the surrounding area, we now have a venue to take them to,” said Kinew.

“It’s to ensure that harm to themselves and others is going to be mitigated.”

N’Dinawemak executive director Frank Parkes said the facility already offered space for intoxicated people and some mental health and medical care, alongside help for housing or employment needs.

“This funding will allow us to be more focused on the medical side and enhance the services that we have,” he said.

The shelter consistently reaches its capacity of 200 people, said Parkes.

Kinew hinted provincial funding for the sobering centre will be extended beyond the current fiscal year.

The province, Gillingham’s office and Downtown Winnipeg BIZ will spend about $435,000 to expand summer patrols by the Downtown Community Safety Partnership and combine them with organizations such as Bear Clan Patrol.

Existing DCSP patrols will work overtime on day and evening shifts, said executive director Greg Burnett.

In June, the group carried out more than 700 wellness checks and reversed seven opioid poisonings, he said.

The DCSP and Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service are now using shared radio and dispatch systems, a first in Canada for an outreach organization and emergency service.

Burnett said the DCSP has so far handled 31 calls that otherwise would have involved the WFPS.

Reports of violent crime in downtown Winnipeg increased by 17 per cent in 2023 compared with 2022, police figures showed.

A recent survey commissioned by the Winnipeg Police Board found half of respondents feel very or reasonably safe walking alone in the area during the day. The figure dropped to just nine per cent at night.

Kinew, who said he feels safe downtown, said long-term solutions will take years, and must involve more funding for education, recreation and services.

Some people who live or work downtown told the Free Press they welcome any measure to improve safety.

Peter Janciw, who has worked downtown for almost 20 years, has noticed more people in need of help.

“It has changed, definitely, in the last 10 years, especially since the pandemic,” he said, noting his sense of safety is influenced by factors such as the time of day or the volume of foot traffic. “More people downtown will create that safety factor.”

“More people downtown will create that safety factor.”–Peter Janciw

Daniel Equbazgi, who opened Dan’s Cafe & Lounge at Graham and Edmonton Street two years ago, said one of his glass doors was recently smashed for a fifth time during a break-in.

“I’ve been in business downtown for seven years, but I’ve never seen it this bad,” he said. “The addiction thing has been worse and worse. At the same time, they are suffering, too.”

Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, welcomed greater collaboration between governments and organizations.

“We certainly do not want fire and paramedics showing up to calls when they are not needed,” she wrote in an email. “The DCSP approach, which has long been the approach of community outreach teams such as Main Street Project’s, is a good one, based on building relationships and not seeking to move people ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”

She said Police Accountability Coalition members are trying to meet with the NDP government to advocate for a community-led response to people in crisis that only involves police or other emergency services if and when needed.

Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg, said the downtown safety plan was the first in many years that wasn’t anchored by police.

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She said the province’s community-centred approach is evidence of a shift in discourse, and a testament to the work of downtown activists and service providers who advocate for peer-led outreach.

She worries the new measures will prioritize the desires of the business community.

“It’s still focused on removing people from downtown in order to create an environment that is satisfactory for businesses,” said Dobchuk-Land.

PC justice critic Wayne Balcaen said short-term policies and one-time funding announcements won’t halt an increase in crime.

“Today, the NDP government failed to demonstrate a long-term commitment to improving public safety in all Manitoba communities, not just the next two months of summer in downtown Winnipeg,” he said in a statement.

Last year, the PCs announced funding for more police foot patrols and surveillance cameras downtown.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.