Consultant to report on downtown public safety
It will take “a sense of urgency” to solve escalating crime, homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness downtown, says a public safety consultant hired for the third time in 15 years to address chaos in Windsor’s core.
“The cities that change direction develop a sense of urgency that really becomes the engine for change,” said Peter Bellmio, hired by the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association. Windsor has been “incremental” in addressing change, he said, and that’s not enough. “It’s about determining, is there a sense or urgency? Is there interest on the part of leadership to build on that sense of urgency and bring us together and come up with a larger plan that’s collaborative?” The city first hired Bellmio, former director of public safety for Decatur, Illinois, who has worked for numerous police forces and public services in the United States and Canada, in 2003 to address the rowdy bar scene. He recommended a number of measures, from security cameras on streets to zoning that promotes a balance of activities.
The DWBIA hired Bellmio again in 2008 to reassess after 20-yearold Luis Acosta-Escobar was shot to death near an after-hours club on Pelissier Street, and city council voted against a mandatory closing time for bars.
The city had implemented only some of Bellmio’s 2003 recommendations.
“The biggest problem is you had different people picking off different parts of the plan,” Bellmio said at the time. “It was not cohesive. If you do things in isolation, it’s not going to work.”
The problems are much more complicated and serious this time, Bellmio, who is based in Annapolis, Maryland, observed Monday. “The level of human suffering here has increased — overdoses, people living in alleys, people with shopping carts,” he said. Someone pushed a shopping cart of belongings past the DWBIA office on Pelissier as Bellmio spoke. Bellmio spent the day Monday meeting with DWBIA chairman Larry Horwitz and other board members, seeing the downtown and talking to business owners. He will spend four days here in January, when he hopes to meet with city officials, police, health care and social service providers and businesses. He also hopes to analyze economic data and data on blight, calls to police and the number of offenders or accused released in the community. “It’s to try to get a sense of how does everybody see the problem because usually the solution doesn’t come with a home run, one intervention that fixes everything,” he said. “It’s multidisciplinary. It has to be collaborative.” Windsor police will be “at the table,” confirmed Sgt. Steve Betteridge. “That’s what it takes,” he said, “a number of community partners at the table.” Bellmio spoke to Squirrel Cage co-owner John Ansell while walking around downtown Monday. “The walking dead — that’s what it feels like,” Ansell told him, describing the mentally ill and addicts. His restaurant’s patio was part of a crime scene from a shooting this year. “We’re putting our heart and soul into this,” he said of his business. “It would be nice if people could step up and help us deal with this.” Bellmio will try to determine who the homeless and those with mental illness and addiction are and where they come from, saying it’s like a demographic study. “Only then can you come up with a solution,” he said.
He will also investigate whether social services should be clustered downtown or spread across the city and the impact of the Downtown Mission moving to the main library on Ouellette Avenue. Solving the problems will be up to the community, he said. “It’s about people being able to share information and come up with a local solution,” he said. “You have to sit down and see all the resources Windsor has and if we’re using them effectively. That goes a long way.”
The city can’t wait for the provincial government, beset by debt and cutting spending, to solve the problem, he said.
“No major external force is suddenly going to solve this,” he said. But it will require collaboration, he said.
“The more collaborative you can be, the higher the probability you’re going to find untapped resources,” he said. “What we need to do is create a strategy we can get behind.” He called additional police officers and security cameras downtown, announced by Mayor Drew Dilkens during the election, a start but warned, “You can’t just enforce your way out of the problem.” The city must address the cause of the problems, he said.
“Are you getting the right people the right services at the right time?”
Deploying too many police officers downtown can backfire, he said. People see all the police, and they stop coming downtown. There have been numerous meetings about the problems, Horwitz said. Everyone has a different idea, and everyone wants money. “We don’t seem to be able to put it all together,” he said. He believes the community will be more willing to implement Bellmio’s recommendations this time because “they’re looking for answers.”
If we don’t act, “that’s our shame,” he said.
The report, which will cost about $10,000, is expected to be ready in February.