Thunder Bay city council adopts new community well-being plan

The co-ordinator of the new Community Safety and Well-Being Plan in Thunder Bay hopes the initiative will lead to better outcomes forresidents in the northwestern Ontario city.

The new plan, which was mandated by the province, replaces the city's Crime Prevention Strategy,Lee-Ann Chevrette said.

"We are sort of shifting to a smaller advisory committee," Chevrette said. "The Crime Prevention Council itself will evolve into more of a round table without direct reporting requirements to city council, but will be a place where we will gather all of thosesector leaders and representatives that do work around safety and well-being in the community, to share information and network."

The Community Safety and Well-Being Plan focuses on six main priorities, Chevrette said:

• Racism and discrimination.
• Housing and homelessness.
• Mental health and substance misuse.
• Community and gender-based violence.
• Poverty reduction and financial empowerment.
• Support for children and families.

"Fighting crime head on is only one part of the equation. We also need to address the root causes of crime and complex social issues by focusing on social development, prevention and risk intervention,"Sylvia Jones, Ontario's
minister of community safety and correctional services, says on the government's website.

"Community safety and well-being cannot rest solely on the shoulders of the police. It is a shared responsibility by all members of the community and requires an integrated approach to bring municipalities, First Nations and community partners together to address a collective goal."

We certainly will continue to look to other areas of governmentto provide additional support where required.- Lee-Ann Chevrette, Community Safety and Well-Being Plan

Chevrette said Thunder Bay'sprioritieswere identified through community consultation. Although the province mandatedmunicipalities to develop new community safety and well-being plans, there is no word on additional provincial funding that will be available to help fund them.

"We recognize thatsome of it, the complex challenges that we face in our community related to safety and well-being, are outside of the jurisdiction of the municipality alone to respond to," Chevrette said. "For example,we're not funded for fair housing.We're not funded for mental health or substance misuse or those types of challenges.

"The municipality can do some of that work, but we certainly will continue to look to other areas of governmentto provide additional support where required."

Looking for positive outcomes

An advisory committee that will oversee the plan has been put in place.

"Next steps will be to get together with those action tables and bring some greater clarity to ... what actions we take, what strategies or what initiatives will have the greatest impact," Chevrette said. "There's work to do around figuring out a framework for connecting all of the action tables."

While the new plan is shifting the focus from crime prevention, Chevrette said anything that improves outcomes for residents will have a positive effect on the community.

"I think if we can create the conditions in our community where people are cared for, where people are valued, where people have access to the supports and services that they need so that they are not made vulnerable by our systems, then people ... will have better options," she said. "They won't become so vulnerable to ... becoming victimized, engaged in the criminal justice system or in criminal matters."