Compassion Meets Public Safety: A Downtown Safety and Wellbeing Plan for Sooke

Front cover illustration. Town Centre Plan, 2009.

Sooke should be proud of the compassion and community support it has built since 2017 for people experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges and substance use challenges.

The Sooke Shelter Society, Hummingbird Place, Sooke Homelessness Coalition, BC Housing, T’Sou-ke Nation, local churches, community organizations and volunteers have created shelter, supportive housing, meals, outreach and connections to health and social services. The goal is to help people move from living outside, to shelter, to supportive housing and, when they are ready, to independent living.

People can heal. People can recover. But they rarely succeed without stable housing and wraparound community support.

For many of the people currently unhoused in our community, Sooke is home. Moving them from one park, street or community to another does not solve anything. At the same time, businesses, employees and residents have legitimate concerns about threatening behaviour, theft, property damage and public spaces that sometimes feel unsafe.

We should be able to address both.

Victoria recently adopted a Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan that combines visible police and bylaw patrols, enforcement, outreach, shelter and housing connections. Victoria is not Sooke, but there may be something worth adapting to our scale.

What if Sooke created a small Downtown Community Safety and Wellbeing initiative? Imagine consistent RCMP and bylaw officers walking downtown, building relationships with businesses and intervening before problems become serious. Pair that presence with outreach workers who can connect people with shelter, treatment, mental health care and housing. Homelessness is not a crime. But threatening someone, stealing or making a public space unsafe should not be normalized either.

The next Council should build on the good work already underway by advocating for stable provincial and federal funding, more outreach workers and case managers, better access to treatment and mental health care, and additional supportive housing. Compassion and public safety are not opposing ideas. We can protect the dignity of people who are struggling while also protecting the people who live, work and run businesses downtown.

What do you think? Could this approach work in Sooke