Vanier Community Association: Health and Safety Committee

and

Working group on Crime Prevention

Wednesday, November 9th 2011, 5:30 – 7:30

CSCV, Centre Francophone site at 270, Marier St., Community Room

Chair: Geoff Derry (VCA) with Nancy Worsfold (CPO)

Draft Minutes

  1. Welcome and introductions
  1. Approval of agenda (Kim, Helena)
  • Kim would like to add a point to the agenda to discuss the INSITE question.
  1. Approval of minutes from March 30th meeting and follow-ups

a)Follow-up on needle question and crack houses

  • Ottawa Public Health is ready to help with bio-hazard equipment but owners are responsible of picking up needles on their property.
  • A follow-up with Rick will be done by CPO.
  1. Moving forward together –role of CPO and of Community in addressing safety issues (Nancy)
  2. CPO’s mandate is working with communities on questions of crime prevention. This being said, CPO will still be supporting the initiatives that will be happening in Vanier.
  3. They want to assure the continuity of what has been done and will continue supporting this group with resources.
  4. CPO needs to start working with other communities.

Geoff, chair of the Health and Safety Committee of the Vanier Community Association.

  • Meetings will be held every 4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm at the VCSC. Specific room and location will be confirmed. There will be no meeting in December.
  • Meetings will be oriented more around action and there will be some meetings that will focus on inviting guests to share useful information.
  • Will continue partnership with CPO and other organizations and is happy that the community is taking on a leadership role on these questions.

Helena, Director of Community Development and Counseling at the Vanier Community Service Centre

  • VCSC/Together for Vanier mandate is to support this group.
  • The VCSC has applied for 3 year funding with United Way to ensure Elyse’s position.

Logistics

  • New email of the Association will be posted on website soon.
  • Keeping paper lists of contacts will be useful.
  • VCA can send out an email with new H&S email.

Updates:

VCSC: Crime prevention/Together for Vanier

  • Movies in the Park was a success. Thanks to all volunteers who helped out.
  • CPO Paint it up! anti-graffiti mural project on Loui’s Pizza. Great support from the Community and participants had a great time.
  • Organizing Together for Vanier Retreat on January 14th: present strengths, challenges, discuss commonalities and work on common projects.
  • Neighborhood Parties: Halloween Party, Émond Park, Nault Park, Blake St.
  • Outreach caravans will continue next year. Great way to listen to residents concerns.

Beautification:

-Meetings are held every 3rd Tuesday at 6:30 at the VCSC (year round). December meeting time and location to be confirmed. Check website for updates.

-226 members, usually 30 people attend meetings

-List of accomplishments: mural, Halloween, Walkabouts, Ottawa Citizen Articles, Optimist Park Clean-up, Movies in the Park, volunteers, stop signs, how to build a better neighborhood, promo sheet…

-List of projects: Cenotaph Clean-up, media info-session, snow people, storefront project, sidewalk projects, Christmas group picture…

Ottawa Police:

  • Sweeps: Last sweep was aimed to johns. 11 johns were charged.
  • Crime prevention week: Volunteers passed “All valuables removed” cards in various locations.
  • Residential break-ins have dropped, commercial break-ins have gone up.
  • Presence at neighborhood parties: has been difficult (ex.: conflicting schedules with Zero tolerance week-end). Members appreciate OPP presence and do not expect representatives to stay for a full event.
  • Abandoned carts: who to call? 3-11.
  • This issue has been brought to Council (Nathaniel).

CPO: Active problem addresses

  • Presently organizing a forum in partnership with the CDF Safety Community to see what are the system issues that affect communities.
  • Hope to develop a framework to deal with problems.
  • A scan of 15 municipalities across Canada has been done (see website)
  • 3 focus groups will be formed with residents and service workers. Nancy proposes that the January 24th meeting be used as a focus group for this project.
  1. Presentation by Ottawa Cheryl Parrot of Hintonburg about reporting issues of Safety, Crime and Disorder
  2. 2004 was the peak of bad years in Hintonburg with many problem houses.
  3. One of the difficult addresses was an owner-occupied building with no mortgage. The cause was brought to provincial attorney and took 10 months to review the property. The situation is much better now.
  4. New prostitution has come back to the Hintonburg neighborhood. Association and police are working closely on this.
  5. The Hintonburg Association has 200 members and an email list of about 700 addresses.

b)Best practices to deal with difficult owners/slums (trial and error)

  • Important questions: What to say to the owner?Who is the mortgage holder?
  • Land title searches ($$)
  • Building a task force (councilor, police, agencies, bylaw, zoning, property standards)
  • Having a map of problem addresses
  • Documenting when you call the police and any action you are taking towards this situation. (Keeping a file for each property is very useful)
  • Encouraging people to report (so that it’s not always the same people)
  • Encouraging people to talk about problematic addresses (distributing flyers in the street for community meetings to talk about a specific address (buddy systems, opportunity to meet your neighbors, street committees and parties)
  • Making a “wish list” of a couple of problematic addresses and keeping the police informed. It is important to do your own research as the Police can’t always give you the information you want (confidentiality purposes)

c)Community Police officer

  • Talks to the owner
  • Often, there are good reactions and owners are ready to move forward.
  • If there is no cooperation, the police will tell you if it is safe to approach the owner.

d)Stepwise process:

1)Sending a letter to the owner from the resident’s association. This letter should be CC’d to all relevant politiciansand the Community Police Officer. It is important to always say report the real facts (dates, proof of reporting etc.)

2)There usually are no replies so this is when you approach the mortgage companies or go directly to the bank. The issue has to have relevancy for them and Cheryl recommends going to a local branch.

3)You can also send a claim to the Insurance bureau of Canada (even if you can’t have access to any information, this will affect claims)

4)What is also effective is to have a meeting with the councilor, police, bylaw, health service representative, community association.

e)Cheryl has kindly offered her help in helping the VCA Health and Safety Committee with developing a process for problematic addresses. Geoff will be in contact with her.

Varia:

-INSITE and needle van changes will be added to the next agenda.

Next meeting: Was set for November 22nd but will be changed to November 29th at 6:30 at the Vanier Community Centre, 290, Dupuis St. in the Vanier room. For more information, please contact Geoff at .

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