Safety, support the focus during forum for downtown businesses in Sudbury

Dozens of downtown business owners gathered in Greater Sudbury for a forum about safety on Wednesday.

Organized by the Downtown Sudbury Business Improvement Association (BIA), the Community Safety Empowerment Forum returned for the first time since the pandemic.

"It's really to empower our downtown businesses to feel safe and comfortable in their operations," said Kendra MacIsaac, co-chair of the BIA, adding there hasn't been an increased number of concerns – but a key focus of the forum is to dispel myths.

"There's a perception that the downtown is unsafe, that the large majority of our vulnerable population is downtown and I think that’s just a perception piece," she said.

Greater Sudbury Police Service (GSPS) Chief Paul Pedersen told CTV News there is a higher number of social disorder and mental health calls downtown and shoplifting – but not violent crimes.

"The violent crime is almost exclusively, between people who are known to each other," he said.

"Again concerning, again, a lot of work for the police department, but the perception of a lack of safety isn’t born in the statistics."

Around two dozen people were in attendance, including speakers from GSPS, Public Health Sudbury and Districts, the City of Greater Sudbury, Reseau Access Network, Canadian Mental Health Association Sudbury Manitoulin and the Go-Give Project.

Stephanie Lefebvre is the director of programs and planning with the local mental health association and was one of those speakers.

She said there are a lot of people struggling in the city.

"We have a lot of individuals in our community who are struggling, struggling with mental health or addictions or homelessness or a combination of the three," said Lefebvre.

"It takes a community to support individuals in a way that’s going to be meaningful and have an impact for them and businesses play a role in that."

Pastor Jeff Robertson with the Salvation Army said he wanted to attend to see what resources are available to support the community.

"We always have a lot of needles around our buildings. People hanging around," said Robertson.

"We try and talk with them as we can. We've had people camping out behind the church and we want to make sure they're safe, that they're taken care of and we have the resources to know who to call in those situations."

Some of the concerns raised by business owners were a lack of access to public washrooms.

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Downtown Sudbury and the Go-Give Project also announced that their pilot project called ‘Welcoming Streets’ will become permanent as of Jan. 1 – after the success of the 60-day trial.

"(‘Welcoming Streets’) provides support to the local businesses along with an education and anti-stigma piece while helping mitigate our friends from the community by finding another location to hang out, sleep or whatever the case may be," said Go-Give Project executive director Evie Ali.

She said the pilot has been well-received.

"We've had phone calls at local businesses for individuals that might be loitering and our team attends these calls and provides a snack, a conversation and just get these individuals moving along," said Ali.

"It's safer for them, safer for the businesses and everybody in the end is hopefully happy, so we're really excited."

BIA officials said they plan to host these forums twice a year.

Some of the concerns raised during the event will be presented at the upcoming Toxic Drug Summit in Sudbury in December.