Why does Cambridge need its own security force?

We already have a police service in Waterloo Region.

So why does Cambridge city council think it’s necessary to hire security guards to patrol its downtown areas, public buildings and parks?

Council voted unanimously earlier this month to hire five security guards to work 24-7, which will cut back on damage to public washrooms, drinking in public parks and other unwanted behaviour.

But the decision felt a little off. Councillors on all sides of the political spectrum said it makes sense financially to bring security guards in-house instead of contracting out.

It cuts down on overtime for bylaw enforcement officers. And because there would be less damage to city facilities — fewer broken windows and less damage to buildings — the $303,900 cost will actually save the city money.

The guards can’t make arrests, but because they’re around, bad behaviour is suppressed, councillors said. A Waterloo Regional Police officer may take a while to come when a regular citizen calls, but if the security guards call police when laws have been broken, the police may get there faster.

All in all, “this is a small price to pay for taking care of our community, keeping it safe and keeping it clean,” said Mayor Jan Liggett.

But if you listened to the budget meeting on Feb. 8 (the discussion of this issue takes place in the last hour) there was a feeling among some councillors that this is a problem caused by homeless people. Some councillors referenced encampments and unhoused people.

A city staff report also indicated an increased number of complaints about people experiencing homelessness in 2023.

The report said there has also been “higher traffic of our unhoused community in and around the City Hall campus,” requiring security involvement.

Coun. Ross Earnshaw also referred to homeless people at the meeting, and talked about the unwanted “drinking club” at Mill Race Park in downtown Galt.

When security guards were down there last summer in a pilot project, “it had a salutary effect,” he said. “But it was unsustainable from a budget perspective.”

Coun. Scott Hamilton, one of the more liberal voices on council, made sure to state that although he supports the measure, “this is not a motion targeting the entire unhoused population. This is not a ‘police the homeless’ presence.”

After the meeting, he said: “I would never vote for anything that would target or malign a population that is marginalized.”

Councillors are walking a tightrope here, and some of them know it.

Like the anxious person who waits and waits for an MRI, and then finally pays privately to get it done in another country, the city’s dilemma — and the solution it has come up with — reveals a system that has been broken.

Even if they are the ones breaking into buildings and sleeping in public washrooms, the homeless are not the problem. They are often just doing what they must do in order to survive.

They are the evidence of the problem, though. A huge problem of broken families, drug addiction and skyrocketing rents, very little of which has been brought on these people by themselves.

Where is the assistance from the federal and provincial governments? Why aren’t there plenty of funds for managed encampments, which work really well to help homeless people when they are properly set up?

But the higher levels of government just look away and slide all these difficulties onto the municipalities, which, as Hamilton said, are the least well equipped to deal with them, financially and otherwise.

Municipalities “have the least amount of power and money and control,” he said.

The security guards will solve part of Cambridge’s problem, for a while. But the city just doesn’t have the resources to make the real problems go away.

Five full-time security officers will solve part of Cambridge’s problem, for a while. But the city just doesn’t have the resources to make the real problems go away