By Cheryl Jahn

Safety Hub set to go this month

Mar 10, 2021 | 4:14 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – As Council learned earlier this week, the Community Safety Hub is set to swing into action at the end of the month.

“The Community Safety Hub is going to encompass Bylaw Services, we have Northern Health, BC housing will be involved,” explains Mayor Lyn Hall. “We’re going to have those jurisdictions, that are strong partners, in one location. So we can be quick to react to things that are going on in our downtown.”

The Community Safety Hub was one of the commitments from the City of Prince George as a partner in the Special Committee on a Safe, Clean and Inclusive Community.

The Hub is also where four new Bylaw Services officers will be housed, starting in April. During budget discussions, Council approved redirecting funding initially allocated for security services to hire the new officers.

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And, while the Car 60 program existed long before the Special Committee was created, the Car 60 program will be operated out of that facility. The Car 60 program pairs and mental health professional with an RCMP officer to attend calls in which a mental health specialist is required.

Northern Health has now hired a full-time coordinator to work out of that facility. That individual will quarterback the various different Northern Health agencies operating within the Hub.

And, finally, a major element of the Hub model is the situation table.

“The situation table, really, has all those players again around the table talking about issues that are occurring right away,” says the mayor. A community partners session was held a couple of weeks ago around the creation of a situation table in which more than 60 agencies attended.

All of the recent attention to the downtown, from the creation of the Select Committee to the Safety Hub, has been the result of downtown businesses raising Cain about the amount of vagrancy and crime in the downtown. The Prince George Business Owners Advocacy Group was formed, demanding more immediate remediation. While that hasn’t happened yet, spokesperson John Zukowski says he’ll give the Safety Hub a chance.

But there are expectations.

“I would say it’ll take a little bit of time for the working group, their “roundtable” to get moving. I would say if there’s a commitment from all the parties, 30 days. We should see substantial, noticeable changes within 60 days. If we don’t see anything within 90 days, then it’s another grandiose waste of money.”