A crime prevention initiative started by the BC Ministry of Public Safety will be presented to West Kelowna Council Tuesday.
The $50,000 start-up grant set up by the Office of Crime Reduction and Gang Outreach-Policing and Security Branch was created to help communities develop a Situation Table.
“A Situation Table (the “HUB”) is a crime prevention initiative by community safety partners,” states the report. “The Situation Table would function to bring together, on a regular basis, professionals and specialists from several community agencies to deal with high risk social and personal situations that cannot be addressed by a single agency, and which if left unattended would likely lead to criminal offending or victimization.”
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The HUB would be comprised of employees from social agencies, health care workers, educators, governments and police to help at-risk community members and help them access services. The front-line workers would work together to identify and mitigate risks that are associated with criminal offending, victimization and personal crisis.
The City of Kelowna is currently developing their own HUB model and originally planned on working alongside Westbank First Nation and the City of West Kelowna to create a regional model however the province and RCMP decided a Westside specific HUB was necessary.
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“Another very important determination by this group was that the Indigenous community did not have a strong voice at the much larger Kelowna HUB,” states the report.
The Westside HUB would cater to the Greater Westside communities of West Kelowna, Westbank First Nation and Peachland.
Surrey, B.C. and Mission B.C. have their own versions of the HUB that were implemented last year.
Council will have their first meeting of the new year Tuesday, Jan. 8.
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