Originally published in Lake of the Woods Area News, Volume 54, Number 4, Fall 2024
Whether you live in Kenora year-round or visit as a seasonal resident or tourist, you likely have a sense of the jewel our picturesque town is, nestled on the shores of Lake of the Woods.
Yet, there are people who no longer feel safe in our downtown, which is in sharp contrast to our beautiful surroundings. Kyle Attanasio, the City’s Chief Administrative Officer, points to some “galvanizing incidents” over the past few years that have heightened the city’s focus on creating a healthier, safer, and more inclusive environment for all who call this vibrant town home and choose to visit throughout the year.
“The City of Kenora is prioritizing the safety and well-being of our residents and visitors,” said Mayor Andrew Poirier. “Through initiatives like creating a Crime Prevention and Community Well-Being Advisory Committee, hiring the expertise of consultants, and the launch of the new Neighbourhood Empowerment Team (NET), we are fostering a community-driven approach to addressing safety concerns and empowering residents to be part of the solution working towards a safer and more vibrant community.”
The Area News will be featuring a series of articles looking at these initiatives that together, play a role in creating a safer, more sustainable community for everyone.
Charting the course for a safer downtown
Steve Woolrich is the Vice President of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) Canada, and a certified CPTED expert. City Council supported the $30,000 residency project for Woolrich in the 2024 operating budget to better integrate the city’s efforts in health and safety, environmental design and planning.
With over three decades of crime prevention experience under his belt, Woolrich has already kick-started several successful initiatives across Western Canada, including Victoria, Kelowna, and Nanaimo in B.C., and Red Deer, Alberta to name a few. He is now in the process of putting the pieces in place to systematically change Kenora’s downtown.
In a media release about the residency, Attanasio said, “Our community is looking for leadership in community safety and well-being and the City intends to capitalize on Steve’s expertise through staff training and idea generation as well as his observations and recommendations. His insights will be critical in helping us chart our course forward toward a safer community.”
Woolrich offers kudos to the City for showing initiative and credits the hiring of Eric Shih, the new Community Safety and Well-Being Coordinator, as a key step in the right direction. “The staff in smaller municipalities are often pulled in so many directions and too often, issues around community safety and well-being are handled off the side of someone’s desk. Hiring Eric is huge.”
In addition to bringing a diverse perspective that includes time spent in policing, corrections and corporate security, Woolrich uses a “full-spectrum community safety and well-being approach” for his work. This includes blending industry best practices like crime prevention through environmental design, placemaking, and healthy built environment tools.
“CPTED is founded on the idea that thoughtful design and use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime and to an improvement in quality of life,” Woolrich said.
His work dovetails with that being done by Christiane Sadeler, of More Better Solutions, the consultant hired to lead the development of the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, which is provincially mandated under the Community Safety and Policing Act (ontario.ca/laws/statute/19c01).
“We are sharing a lot of the same data, and some of my findings working at the street level may help inform the final Plan that Christian is preparing,” said Woolrich. Woolrich and Sadeler’s projects are quite separate, but complementary, with Woolrich’s being focused more on space and people and Sadeler’s on people and social development and services.
Both will consider findings from a survey conducted by Sadeler earlier this year to assess the community’s perceptions of safety as well as to identify how people want to be involved in solutions.
The survey received a very high seven per cent response (normal is one or two per cent) with a whopping 87 per cent of respondents saying they are willing to “roll up their sleeves” and contribute to making Kenora safer.
People are willing to be part of the solution
“People have indicated a willingness to try something new, and this might be some bold ideas—things we haven’t tried before,” said Shih. Like Woolrich, he indicates that much of what we’re seeing in Kenora isn’t different than other communities across Canada. “Drug use, trauma, mental health concerns, crime, vandalism, and other issues, are increasingly common. We can look at what’s worked in other cities and keep our minds open to what could work here.”
He adds, “Kenora is for everybody. If we want a welcoming community, we need to understand that. We are working hard to make sure everyone’s voices are being heard in this process.”
Woolrich’s work has been focused on the downtown area as this is where the greatest concerns related to public safety have been identified.
Steve Woolrich is conducting a comprehensive Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) assessment of downtown Kenora and sharing the principles of CPTED with community stakeholders.
Creating places people want to be
“Ultimately what we’re trying to get to, is creating safer built environments, but also creating places where people just want to be. This is again, challenging for downtowns across the country with so many complex issues converging—crime, homelessness, addictions, and mental health,” said Woolrich.
He talks about first- and second-generation principles as the pathway forward. First generation CPTED principles look at physically built environments, while second generation principles consider social cohesion, connection, capacity and culture. “The key is how they’re all applied,” he said.
When they work together, communities can truly activate urban spaces in ways that will help reduce crime and increase the overall sense of safety.
“Placemaking” is what Woolrich describes as the fun part as it engages creative solutions and people. He has seen significant success in other cities where vagrant back allies and other troublesome locations were turned into welcoming gathering spaces through music and art. “The goal is to enliven spaces that were previously seen as unsafe by creating places where people can connect, and build trust and relationships,” Woolrich said.
“Some of the best placemakers are our artists and musicians who have created some of the most beautiful, vibrant public spaces in the world. When you can tap into that creativity, something truly transformative happens.”
This thinking is integral to two key components of Woolrich’s residency, which included a downtown assessment upon which his recommendations will be based, and establishing a cohort of City staff, police, and community volunteers who will be trained in the CPTED methodologies to maintain the momentum on this work well after his departure.
Kenora’s Neighbourhood Empowerment Team (NET), comprising 18 local participants including City staff, community members, and both an O.P.P. and Treaty #3 Police officer, was launched early in the summer. The team composition was carefully selected to ensure balanced representation. Shih co-leads the team with Karen McDonald, the City’s Bylaw Supervisor and Heather Pihulak, Director of Corporate Services, overseeing the initiative.
Attanasio sees one of the key roles of the NET to be to “activate residents.” This could include re-energizing pillar events that aren’t happening as much due to some of the concerns about downtown safety. “This is where NET can help augment having residents play a role in some of these activities. That includes having people as part of a vibrant downtown and giving them opportunities to be part of the change.”
A made in Kenora plan
The final recommendations from Woolrich’s work will be delivered to the city in the form of an ArcGIS Story Map. This expansive digital storytelling tool will provide a visual overview of all the data and action items being recommended. It’s very much like a website, allowing the user to scroll through information and explore various links to other interesting material.
According to Attanasio, this ultimately needs to be a “made in Kenora plan.”
He adds, “We haven’t been through an easy time as a community—amalgamation, mill closure, the pandemic, economic turmoil, etc. You can understand why the average Kenora resident isn’t jumping out of bed excited about community—but there are things happening now that could fundamentally transform our city.
“People are showing up in good faith. We just need to trust the process.”
Woolrich is confident that the Kenora effort will be successful. “The response I’ve had has been extraordinarily positive,” he said. He notes this isn’t always the case but as the survey results show, there’s many people from different sectors—business, residents, visitors, service providers, even first responder—who want to be part of the change.
“Businesses need to come together and collaborate more. I’ve seen success stories in other cities where businesses on a block have partnered to do cleanup. Property owners need to play a bigger role, by improving buildings in disrepair or vacant. If the appearance of a building is poor, that attracts graffiti, garbage, and vandalism. Everybody plays a part in this, no exception. People are always looking to police or the City to solve it all. Crime prevention is everybody’s business.”
Woolrich sees the key to success is people being prepared to get involved in the community on a whole different level. He points to the need for business owners to step outside and get to know their street neighbours and working with different local organizations around arts and music.
“We underestimate creativity. Some of these things are not expensive to do.”
Another opportunity lies in “designing out crime in new developments.” This is achieved in many other cities by embedding the various CPTED principles into land use guidelines and Official Community Plans. “Why build something that’s going to potentially generate crime? If you can design out these problematic elements, those issues can be reduced.”
Woolrich also talks about the importance of “social cohesion”. One of the ways he sees improving this in Kenora is for individuals and organizations to collaborate more, which will be a focus of the NET.
“Many communities struggle with their silos. NET is made up of individuals from different City departments and members of the community—so there’s a much broader range of people working together. Their role will be to go out and be the champions of this work and to spread it throughout the community, ultimately bringing people together.
“When we all take ownership in our public spaces in this way, it’s a game changer.”
