St. John's community groups question efforts to make downtown safer

A month after big bucks were allocated to a campaign to make downtown St. John's safer, agroup is speaking out over how that money is being spent.

In June, the Downtown Safety Coalition made up of representatives from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Downtown St. John's, the George Street Association, the city, Destination St. John's, Hospitality N.L., Music N.L. and the provincial government received $180,000 in funding to improve safety in the downtown core.

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But now theSt. John's Status of Women Council, First Light, Migrant Action Centre, Quadrangle N.L., Stella's Circle and Thrive have sent a joint letter to the city challenging the initiatives that money is funding.

St. John's Status of Women Council's executive director Lisa Faye has a list of things she'd prefer to see tax dollars going toward that she says would make the area safer than more policing. At the top of the list is safe and affordable housing.

"When people have a place to call home, when people have a safe roof over their head where they can sleep well at night, that makes a change in everyone's lives," said Faye.

"Right now we know I don't have to talk about the housing crisis. It's a lot in our community."

Other pressing issues she identified are food insecurity, education around marginalization and discrimination, as well as a lack of access to mental health services and health care.

"We believe if you invested those dollars in those things, that would change everything," she said.

Since the $180,000 funding is coming from the city and the province, she said, they both bear responsibility around safety.

"These are taxpayer dollars and we need to be investing them in places [and] in spaces that can actually create safety in our community," she said.

"The buck stops with them because it's their buck, and they have to decide what the priority is and that they really believe will build safety for the larger community and not a small group of people who have more privilege."

Roundtable discussion dismissed

In February, Faye said, the city hosted a roundtableon building safer communities, and downtown safety was discussed.

"It was a really great roundtable [of]a really diverse group of people in the community," she said.

The grouptalked about poverty reduction in relation to housing and food access.

"It was really about providing people with the support they need when they're living in poverty," said Faye.

Hoping for action

Faye said the group sent itsjoint letter to the city earlier this week and isnow waiting for a response.

"We are hoping that we can go back to what was discussed at the roundtable. What we're really hoping is that we can look at what was said there and look at this funding and think about better ways to use it that aren't maybe about policing but are about poverty reduction," she said.

While she doesn't think the current fundingcan end poverty in the city, she said itcan still go towardhelping people.

"That's a lot of funding for a community organization," she said."That's a lot of funding for anyone, and we can make a difference."

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