FAQs

Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan aims to achieve the ideal state of a sustainable community where everyone is safe, has a sense of belonging, access to services and where individuals and families can meet their needs for education, health care, food, housing, income, and social and cultural expression.

A community safety and well-being plan aims to achieve an ideal state of community safety and wellbeing by  addressing the root causes of safety, well-being and complex social issues. The development of this plan will focus on four key areas that work together to make communities safer and healthier including:

• Social development to improve the social determinants of health (the things that make us healthy) and reduce the probability of harm and victimization; 
• Prevention to proactively implement programs to reduce risks to community safety and well-being before they result in crime, victimization and / or harm;  
• Risk intervention to prevent an incident from occurring while reducing the need for incident response; and 
• Incident response for immediate and reactionary responses that involve a sense of urgency. 

Community safety and well-being cannot be addressed in isolation by any one institution, organization, sector, or individual; it needs all our collective action. Community Safety and Well-Being plans support safe and healthy communities through a community-based and data driven approach to address root causes of complex social issues. Planning seeks to achieve a proactive, balanced and collaborative approach to community safety and well-being across four key areas: social development, prevention, risk intervention, and incident response.

The development of this plan meets the municipal requirements set out by the Province's Safer Ontario Act, 2018

Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan is a collective community effort. Community and stakeholder input is critical to the success of this plan. 

Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan development is overseen by an advisory committee which both meets legislative requirements and brings together various sectors’ perspectives together to provide strategic advice and direction to the City on the development and implementation of the plan. 

HCSW Advisory members include:

• Banyan Community Services
• Coalition of Hamilton Indigenous Leadership
• City of Hamilton (Children’s Services and Neighbourhood Development; Public Health Services)
• Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion 
• Hamilton Health Sciences
• Hamilton Police Services    
• Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board  
• Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board 
• McMaster Institute for Healthier Environments 
• McMaster University
• Mohawk College 
• St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton
• Woman Abuse Working Group

Community Safety and Well-Being Advisory members have been engaged to offer strategic advice and direction on the development of the plan, review data to better understand root causes, and apply best practices and recommendations for achieving the greatest impact on community safety and well-being.  The advisory committee will also play a role in supporting engagement with communities through their organizations and ongoing implementation and monitoring of actions as identified in the plan.

Community and stakeholder input will be used to identify and validate priorities established by the Community Safety and Well-Being Advisory Committee, and inform strategies and actions in the development of this plan.

Yes. Hearing a range of perspectives will give us the best possible chance to find creative, meaningful and relevant solutions to the complex issues facing Hamilton. Throughout the planning process the thoughts, ideas, opinions of our various institutions, service providers, communities, and the general public will shape the plan, priorities, and strategies and actions. 

The development of Hamilton’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan is a collaborative effort between the members of the community and the organizations represented by the Advisory Committee members. As the legislative accountability to complete these plans within the Police Services Act falls to municipal government, Hamilton’s City Council will approve the final plan.