CityHousing Hamilton (CHH), the city’s municipally-owned affordable housing provider, is aiming to address increased safety concerns at their social housing sites with a new five-year strategic plan.
The strategy, prepared by Leanne Ward, CHH’s Chief Operating Officer, is considered necessary because reports have been “increasing” and CHH “has predominantly relied upon the use of reactive safety and security measures.”
The strategy was presented at the CHH Board of Directors meeting on Mar. 10 and can be viewed here.
According to data analysis, CHH tenants account for approximately 2.28 per cent of the City of Hamilton’s population, but CHH properties account for 4.0 per cent of the city’s police calls between 2023 and 2025.
Specifically, CHH properties account for 6.8 per cent of the city’s domestic incident police calls (events including persons in a relationship or family) and 4.8 per cent of the city’s violent incident police calls (involving a crime against a person, such as a homicide, assault, robbery, weapon incident, threatening incident, sexual offence, or disturbance).
Additionally, in 2021, before the development of the last strategic plan, CHH conducted engagement efforts with tenants, finding that 46 per cent of residents “felt unsafe in their CHH community” and 71 per cent of residents “had experienced a safety incident at their property.”
Tenants reportedly noted other themes, including trespassing or unauthorized individuals in the building, substance use/drug use/smoking and associated paraphernalia in common areas, and “inconsistent” security guard responses.
Documents also note “outdated and inconsistent technology and physical safety measures” across CHH communities.
The new plan, called “Safe and Vibrant CHH,” is focused on four key areas: physical elements and technology, integrated staff teams and operational protocols, tenant and community engagement, and expanded and strengthened partnerships.
Strategic goals of the plan include enhancing physical and technological security infrastructure, building staff capacity through training, tools, and standardized protocols, strengthening emergency preparedness and responses, building a culture of community-centred safety, and utilizing data-driven approaches.
Some of the planned actions to address security infrastructure include optimizing existing and new surveillance technology, strengthening access control to buildings, and completing Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) audits for all communities.
CHH also plans to implement new technology to track data related to tenant complaints and safety and security incidents.
CHH also plans to work more collaboratively with the healthcare sector “to increase resources dedicated to supporting vulnerable and higher risk tenants whose behaviour can impact community safety and wellbeing.”
The action plan in the strategy will reportedly be broken down into “individually tailored community safety action plans” for each CHH property.
CPTED audits of CHH’s full portfolio are expected to take until the end of 2030 to complete, since they estimate they can undertake 14 audits per year.
However, higher priority sites will be audited first.
CHH does not yet know how much all of the safety and security improvements will cost.
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