By François Biber

Community Support Program looking for reaction to pilot project

Feb 26, 2013 | 4:06 PM

Six months after the launch of the Community Support Program, community support officers (CSOs) have interacted with close to 600 people classified as vulnerable individuals.

Moving forward, the Street Activity committee chair, Terry Scaddan, is looking for scientific evidence to see if the perceptions in the communities of Broadway, Riversdale and Downtown has changed.

Scaddan and representatives from the Community Support Program submitted a six-month report to the Planning and Operations committee on Tuesday, offering a glimpse into their operations.

The report says CSOs conduct visible, uniformed foot patrols in the Downtown, Broadway and Riversdale business improvement districts and so far the group believes they are meeting their goals in making those areas safer.

Scaddan said anecdotal responses from businesses have been positive, but he wants cold hard facts to show him the CSO program is working.

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“We want to know, are those perceptions changing so when we get Insightrix Research Inc. results we’ll have scientific evidence that people’s reactions are different then I think that’s when we’ll know if we’ve been successful or not.”

The program launched in July 2012 with the purpose of targeting aggressive panhandlers, but as CSO supervisor Lesley Prefontaine said, the CSOs job description is constantly changing to meet the needs of the three different business improvement districts in Saskatoon.

“Sometimes it’s about building relationships and connections with people,” said Prefontaine.

“The reports we do is when a business calls us with a concern about a specific panhandler, whether they are too close to the bank door, something that they’re doing to break a panhandling bylaw.”

She said of the 572 interactions with individuals over the first six months, most of them have been triggered by bylaw infractions, such as reminding cyclists not to ride on the sidewalks and interactions with jaywalkers and other people who find themselves on the streets for different reasons for example.

“There’s no clear picture as to who we see but there are people who need our help and they identify us as a team that can help them with different issues. They are in a lot of respects are referring their friends to our program for support,” said Prefontaine.

Councillor Pat Lorje was the one who filed an enquiry to look at aggressive panhandling and a bylaw was created to prohibit panhandlers to come within seven metres of a business doorway.

“Then we thought, there are people who spend a lot of time on the streets and they are not to be associated with any helping agencies or with the regular workforce, so what can we do to assist those individuals, so we brought this program,” said Coun. Lorje.

“I believe they are doing a fine job in opening up the communication with other support agencies.”

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