In 2021, City Council approved Ottawa’s 2021 to 2031 Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. The plan sets out how the City works with community partners to improve the safety, health and well-being of Ottawa residents.
The goal of the plan is to create a sustainable community where everyone:
The plan addresses local risks to safety and well-being at the community level in six areas. These were identified by Ottawa residents as being the most pressing issues during the engagement process:
In 2022, a selection committee made up of community leaders and City staff announced the appointment of the members of the Advisory Committee, who provide guidance and strategic direction to the plan. Members include community representatives, content experts in fields of key enablers for the plan, community agencies, service providers, and City staff.
During the June 2023 Community Services Committee meeting, staff provided an update on the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan's progress. The City advanced ongoing work in its six priority areas and the Community Safety and Well-Being (CSWB) Office built a strong foundation by putting in place the resources, processes and tools needed for the plan’s sustained success.
In 2022, the Community Safety and Well-Being Office partnered with a small local consulting agency with GBV expertise, the Women and Gender Equity Secretariat, Unsafe at Home Ottawa, and the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women for a sector asset mapping to look closely at the resources available for the survivors and victims of gender-based violence and violence against women. Together, we identified what was missing and the actions that can be taken. The study also collected information about culturally appropriate preventive and response services, key challenges in the sector, and organizations’ capacity to collect, analyze, and share data. The CSWB Office is currently working with sector leaders and community partners on a follow-up action plan to prevent and decrease gender-based violence and violence against women, including intimate partner violence. This plan will be based on what we learned about what is working well and what is missing in our current approach. The first step is organizing a GBV-VAW sector gathering to present the asset mapping study and begin action planning.
In July 2023, Council approved the merger of Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) with the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan for a more cohesive, integrated approach to crime prevention. The City of Ottawa’s CSWB Plan and CPO are closely related as they work to address the root cause of social issues while promoting community safety and well-being. Their efforts prioritize collaboration, social development, crime prevention, and community engagement through capacity building as vital strategies for promoting and improving safety and well-being in all communities for all residents.
The CSWB Office is now working with an external consultant to develop a comprehensive transition strategy for embedding crime prevention activities within the CSWB Plan. Staff are currently engaging with community stakeholders and will use the collected feedback to evaluate the current model and decide which elements should be maintained, enhanced or eliminated. This work is instrumental in identifying the most effective approaches for maximum impact. Staff will report back on the transition strategy in 2024.
The Community Safety and Well-Being (CSWB) Office supported community partners in developing a strategy to reduce poverty in Ottawa. An advisory group was established representing different community perspectives. Stakeholders included the community, those with lived experiences of poverty, experts, partner agencies/organizations and other City departments. To collect feedback before and during the strategy's development three roundtables were held. In total 354 individuals, across 70 organizations, participated and shared their feedback. In addition to community engagement, the CSWB Office documented the experiences and demographics of poverty in the Data on the current state of poverty in Ottawa report.
On October 30, 2024, City Council approved the Poverty Reduction Strategy. The strategy's vision is that:
People have the resources they need so they can make decisions about their well-being and pursue their full potential.
To achieve this vision the strategy focuses on five pillars:
With the strategy approved by Council the CSWB team will start work to establish roles and responsibilities, develop an implementation plan, and establish a monitoring and evaluation framework. Progress on the strategy will be shared annually to City Council, with a full review after three years.
Alternate Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) is a community-led, culturally sensitive and equity-centered service that dispatches skilled crisis teams to people in mental health and/or substance use crises. Mobile crisis team staff will assess the needs in the moment and offer responses services that are safe and tailored to individual needs. They can also provide well-being checks, referrals, connections to other services, resources and information.
In July 2023, Council approved funding for the first phase of a safer way to respond to mental health and substance use crises.
Upon completion of the request for proposal, a community-led committee, which also included City staff, selected Centertown Community Health Centre and Somerset West Community Health Centre as the organizations that will lead the team of civilian professionals. In addition, following a separate procurement process, the committee chose Community Navigation of Eastern Ontario (CNEO/211 East) to lead in the Call Diversion (non-911 number) service.
In March 2024, the Safer Alternative Response model was officially named Alternate Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) by the Guiding Council for Mental Health and Addictions.
Launched on August 15, 2024, ANCHOR provides free, confidential, in-person mental health and substance-use supports to Ottawa residents 16+, in Centretown, 24/7/365. Community members in Centretown will be able to call 2-1-1, instead of 9-1-1, if they or someone else is experiencing a mental health and substance use crisis.
For more information on the process leading to the implementation of ANCHOR and for additional details on this service, we encourage you to read the Community Report.
After ANCHOR launched in Centretown, the ANCHOR team completed a formative evaluation of the program. The team reviewed ANCHOR’s activities for the first 11 weeks, from August 15 to October 31, 2024.
A formative evaluation is a tool used to monitor and assess new programs. It looks for areas for improvement and ensures the program is working as intended.
The evaluation aimed to:
The City will use the results to identify gaps and make improvements to the program. They will also act as a baseline for continuous improvement.
During its first 11 weeks ANCHOR has had an impact, receiving over 1 300 calls. To learn more, see the summary infographic.
CityStudio Ottawa is a formal partnership between the City of Ottawa, Algonquin College, Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The purpose of this partnership is to bring students, faculty, municipal staff, and community members together to co-create innovative solutions to pressing social challenges.
CityStudio was founded in Vancouver in 2011 out of the need to engage students in civic issues that matter where they live and work. It launched in Ottawa in 2022, with the projects focused on priorities in the City’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. Thanks to the success of CityStudio Ottawa, the model is being expanded to support the 2023-2026 City Strategic Plan.
Discover how faculty, students, and City staff can get involved. Visit CityStudio Engage to learn more.
Over the next 10 years, the City of Ottawa along with community partners, agencies and institutions will work across sectors to improve the safety, health and well-being of Ottawa residents. The Community Safety and Well-Being (CSWB) Plan will guide these efforts.
Data and research are central to the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. The Community Safety and Well-Being Office has developed a way to measure success and guide actions based on data through the Performance Measurement Framework - Community Safety and Well-Being. The Framework helps understand where the plan is making positive change and where more work is needed. It identified three pillars to measure progress:
Pillar 1: Ottawa population-level indicators look at key information about safety and well-being in Ottawa. These indicators are important to understand how the entire population of Ottawa is doing but are areas where the municipal government is not solely responsible for the outcome. Rather, the purpose of this level of measurement is to provide a centralized source of publicly available information. The population indicators also provide a frame of reference for the actions taken under the CSWB Plan.
Pillar 2: CSWB Plan stakeholder-level indicators keep track of the Community Safety and Well-Being Office’s operations related to stakeholder partnership and community engagement, such as meetings, funding contributions and partnerships, and evaluate their effectiveness. This pillar also involves collecting common indicators from agencies funded by the City of Ottawa under the Community Funding Framework.
Pillar 3: Program-intervention level indicators are used to evaluate Community Safety and Well-Being programs and projects.
The data and the dashboard pages serve as a tool to help people understand data, empowering them to make informed contributions towards community change and enhance overall community well-being. The pages are a work in progress, and we welcome your feedback as we continue to develop them.
Collecting and analyzing sociodemographic data can help to remove barriers to health and social services, identify needed community supports, and work toward equity. While data provides valuable insight, it is important to recognize its limits, such as under-representation of groups and communities due to barriers and lack of data/data gaps.
Our history of systemic racism, sexism and colonization has resulted in deep social inequities. It is time to harness and reposition the potential of data to shed light on these deepening inequalities and enable solutions and change for an equitable community.
We recognize we need quality person-level gender and socio-demographic (age, sex, race, ethnicity, Indigenous identity, etc.) data to properly understand and gauge if we are meeting the needs of all residents. Without gender and socio-demographic data, we risk taking a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and implement programs and services that do not consider the specific needs and barriers experienced by Indigenous and Black communities, women and gender diverse people, and equity-deserving groups in Ottawa.
The Community Safety and Well-Being Office is committed to enhancing the collection of socio-demographic information through the performance measurement framework, with the aim of bridging existing data gaps and ensuring a more comprehensive and inclusive representation of all communities.
Collecting socio-demographic data and utilizing disaggregated data*** is complex, requires significant time and resources, and presents challenges for effective and lasting implementation. We commit to a careful and thorough approach to ensure that the process of data collection, reporting and use does not create problems like limiting access to services, causing harm or reinforcing stereotypes.
The dashboard pages are tools to help people understand data, empowering them to make informed contributions towards community change and enhance overall community well-being. The pages are a work in progress, and we welcome your feedback as we continue to develop them.
***Disaggregated data is the term for breaking down data into specific populations. This is important to understand how different groups in the city experience inequity.
Reporting information about how Ottawa residents feel about their safety and well-being is a crucial part of the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan to make informed decisions and provide better services. In addition to routine reports on safety and well-being, staff also produce thematic reports to cover specific topics in more detail.
The Canadian Housing Survey Dashboard presents results from the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS). The CHS is conducted by Statistics Canada every two to three years to collect information about housing needs, economic hardship, neighborhood satisfaction, trust and perceived safety. The CHS is a cross-sectional survey with new households randomly selected to participate at the time of a new survey cycle. To date, data from two survey cycles are available (2018 and 2021). The most recent data collection period ran from October 2022 to March 2023.
The Temporary Emergency Accommodations Dashboard provides information about people experiencing homelessness in Ottawa. It includes people who have stayed in a City of Ottawa funded shelter, transitional housing program, and overflow sites which include hotels/motels and post-secondary institutions. The data also includes physical distancing centres that have been set up to facilitate physical distancing within City-funded shelter programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Housing data analysis (September 2021)
Analysis of factors related to housing and homelessness during COVID-19 - Public health and economic measures to control the spread of COVID-19 infections created unique housing market conditions in 2020. In Ottawa, some policies and programs introduced during the pandemic offered temporary financial relief to low-income residents while other conditions intensified housing challenges that were present before COVID-19.
A Point-in-Time (PiT) Count is a one-day snapshot of homelessness in the community.
City staff and community partners work together to survey people experiencing homelessness in Ottawa. So far, the City has led two counts:
The data collected helps the City better understand the scope of homelessness in the community and the needs of those experiencing homelessness. The goal of this work is to guide new approaches to address homelessness at a local level and help provide better services.
Staff conduct evaluations for program-level initiatives related to the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan priorities. These initiatives are funded by the City or through grants and funding agreements where the City was the main or co-applicant.
The Community Safety and Well-Being Fund is a 3-year grant that began in July 2022 with the disbursement of a 2.1 million dollars fund to enhance existing community-based programs that have previously demonstrated their success in one or more of the following areas:
Delivering culturally appropriate programs to racialized youth with the aim of increasing employment, mentorship opportunities, and skill sets
Promoting mental health, offer crisis support and outreach services in ways that are culturally appropriate to clients
Providing culturally safe programs that focus on mental health services for the Indigenous population in Ottawa and incorporate actions to prevent violence against Indigenous women and girls
19 applications from 18 agencies were approved. Refer to 2022 Community Safety and Well-Being Approved Projects.
The purpose of the Community Safety and Well-Being Fund evaluation was to document how the funding contributed to:
The evaluation used a mixed-methods approach, combining the following qualitative and quantitative research methods:
The three impact stories below are examples of the impact of the funding on the programs, individuals and communities it supports.
What we heard from the funded agencies (through interviews):
The Community Safety and Well-Being Fund increased capacity of organizations to reach target populations (including racialized and Indigenous youth, women and girls) in priority areas by: (a) expanding services to target groups in priority neighbourhoods through increased staffing, and hours of operation, and reduced waiting times, and (b) expanding reach to diverse target groups through culturally relevant programming, targeted mental health and wraparound supports and resources, and enhanced community partnerships.
What we heard from residents who participated in funded programs (through the survey):
Residents who participated in funded programs stated that the program improved their emotional well-being and provided stress management and skills for improved mental health
Stay engaged with us as we move into the next phases. Sign up for our e-newsletter to receive the latest information on the plan!
