Community Safety and Well-Being Plan

Local Priorities

Community partners identified six local priorities for further investigation and collaboration that are included in Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. These priorities are:

• hate incidents
• violence
• mental health and stigmatization
• substance use*
• homelessness and access to affordable housing
• access to income

*Community engagement and service collaboration is happening through Hamilton’s Drug Strategy.

Balanced Approach

Community Safety and Well-Being plans support safe and healthy communities through a community-based approach to address root causes of complex social issues. Planning seeks to achieve a proactive, balanced and collaborative approach to community safety and well-being across four key areas:

• Social Development - promoting and maintaining community safety and well-being
• Prevention - Proactivity reducing identified risks.
• Risk Intervention - Mitigating situations of elevated risk.
• Incident Response - Critical and non-critical incident response.

Current Focus Areas

In November 2022, a community partner workshop was held bringing together more than 110 participants, representing a wide range of sectors and organizations to inform what initiatives should be included in the CSWBP Implementation Plan to address priority areas. Feedback from the workshop was utilized to inform the following focus areas.

Implementation of a Situation Table in Hamilton

Working with community partners mobilize a Situation Table. This table is a risk-based, collaborative, rapid triage model. Within the model a diverse group of human service professionals work together to connect individuals and families facing situations of acutely elevated levels of risk with the goal of connecting them to the services they need immediately.

Develop a Community Safety & Well-Being Data Strategy

Utilizing the Evaluation Framework developed in partnership with McMaster University’s Office of Community Engagement, develop of a data strategy focused on measuring the impact of the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan to support equitable, evidence-based, and accountable decision making.

Enhance Community-Driven Solutions to Community Safety & Well-Being

Working with residents and community partners support the development of Community-Driven Solutions. Community driven solutions are collaborative approaches where members of a community come together to identify challenges and then work together to develop projects and initiatives to address them with the goal of creating positive change for the community.

In addition to the above noted focus areas significant work is also underway by other partners and within City divisions to refine and understand what specific contribution is needed and can be made through Community Safety and Well-Being to:

• Improve and expand affordable housing options and supports
• Improve homelessness supports through collaboration, shelter reform and reduction of barriers to access
• Advocate for living wage and basic income

Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan development is overseen by an advisory committee which both meets legislative requirements and brings together various sectors’ perspectives to provide strategic advice and direction to the City on the development and implementation of the plan.