In Tuesday night's Committee of the Whole Meeting, council voted to approve the South Simcoe Community Safety and Well Being Plan (CSWB), under the province's CSWB framework.
In 2018, the provincial government passed Bill 175, the Safer Ontario Act, requiring every municipality to prepare and adopt a Community Safety and Well-Being Plan by July 1, 2021.
The plan was made in partnership with the South Simcoe Police Service Board and community partners, in collaboration with the Town of Innisfil.
Karie Warnar of Avail Consulting Inc. presented the plan to council on Tuesday evening.
The goal of the plan is to provide the community with a sense of belonging while feeling safe, and able to meet their needs for education, health care, food, housing, income, and social and cultural expression. It is also there to help mitigate risks in the community such as homelessness, addictions, and mental health issues.
Both Bradford and Innisfil had a head start to formulate their plan before it became a mandatory requirement of the province, thanks to Andrew Fletcher, who became Chief of the South Simcoe Police Service in 2017 and introduced the OACP (Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police) “Community Safety Plan” concept, identifying evidence-based risks and potential community partners.
With passage of the Safer Ontario Act, the local effort was rolled into a larger, Simcoe County-wide effort, led by Avail Consulting. An Advisory Body of experts was established, along with a Geographical Municipal Co-ordinating Committee, with representation from each municipality within the county. Stakeholders and the general public were also engaged, in Phase 1.
The plan presented to council on Tuesday evening outlines four areas of greatest need for support in the community:
- Mental health and addictions: improving equity, access and quality of mental health and addiction (MHA) services across the continuum for all residents
- Housing: addressing the need for housing that is affordable and attainable and to support people so that they remain housed
- Education: ensuring everyone in our community has a clear pathway to education regardless of their age, with a focus on futureproofing our local skilled trades and health care sectors
- Income: advancing income stability for our residents by addressing urgent needs in a dignified way, while striving towards more sustainable solutions that focus on social inclusion and life stabilization supports.
The plan lays out strategies to address these areas of concern and will be targeted at their root causes.
In total, there are eight areas of risk identified throughout Simcoe County municipalities' CSWBs, including mental health and addictions, access to services, education, income, employment, housing, job creation, and preventable mortality/connectedness/safety.
Mental health and addictions were a consistent common area of risk for all municipalities in Simcoe County. This will be the South Simcoe CSWB's initial focus.
"These are really complex issues, we know the solutions and pathways are not linear and no municipality can be held exclusively responsible for community-level well-being," said Warnar.
Fletcher, who also joined the meeting on Tuesday, said he is proud of the work gone into the plan with multiple community agencies collaborating.
"These are intersectoral complex issues," he said. "This is not linear by any means. This is not just about checking the boxes and outputs, this is going to change the outcomes for our community."
"I think this will give us a good base to help our community," said Deputy Mayor James Leduc.
Coun. Gary Lamb said he has seen the trend of homelessness and asked Fletcher how the service plans to deal with calls related to poverty and homelessness, noting officers do not always have the specialized training needed to diffuse the crisis calls.
Fletcher acknowledged while they may not always be best suited to deal with the crisis, they hope the plan will focus more on social development prevention to mitigate the risk of crisis.
"We want to get them before they get into crisis," said Fletcher. "How can we help them before they get into crisis."
Coun. Raj Sandhu said the timing of the report comes at a crucial time as we come out of the pandemic when many are struggling mentally.
He noted the importance of economic development as part of the education area, and the need for more training in the skilled trades, which will create more jobs for those in the community.
"If there's no opportunities in our municipality to stay and earn that living, they are going to go somewhere else," he said, "As elected leaders of this municipality that's where we come in and have to create those opportunities with economic development."
"I think we all realize there is a lot of work to be done," said Mayor Rob Keffer. "This is a starting point moving forward....we have to work together, and not in silos, and pull in any sort of help we have to help people who need assistance."
Town staff will now move onto Phase 2 of the plan which includes forming a South Simcoe CSWB Planning Table that will lead the implementation of the Plan.
Oversight and coordination will be provided by a Steering committee comprised of Table chairs, and representatives from the county, Public Health, OPP, South Simcoe Police, and the Indigenous community.
Funding for the CSWB Plan was supported through provincial and county grants.
Council voted to receive and approve the report.
To view the report with the full CSWB plan, click here.
-with files from Miriam King
