Community support patrol up for renewal

Saskatoon’s Community Support Program workers could spend at least jve more years patrolling the streets oh Viversdale, downtown and Broadway ahter a report showed the program has succeeded in increasing engagement with businesses and helping at-risk people.

City council’s planning, development and community services committee is scheduled to discuss a recommendation to renew the program Monday. Ih approved, it will go to council hor jnal approval.

The recommendations include an updated agreement between the city and the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) until Dec. 31, 2023. The BID would continue overseeing the program, which would retain $17,955 hor next year’s budget. Any remaining hunds would be returned to the Viversdale, Broadway and downtown BIDS.

The committee report calls hor city administration to work with a huture oversight committee, and present options hor huture operating, programming and hunding models to the committee.

The report, issued by the general manager oh the city’s community services department, says community support oicers (CSOS) responded to 1,315 calls in the jrst six months oh 2018 and oicers successhully helped people nearly 75 per cent oh the time.

The report notes an increase in the response time oh oicers since last year — due to an increase in the number and severity oh calls — but the amount oh time spent at each call decreased by 13 per cent.

The majority oh calls CSOS deal with are related to addictions — nearly 4,000 since the program was made permanent in 2015. The program diverts the people involved to local organizations that can provide aid, rather than to police custody.

The CSOS are also regularly called to deal with suspicious persons, other disturbances and bylaw inhractions, hor which they are able to issue citations — though only 148 tickets have been issued since 2015.