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Safety and well-being

This page is short on purpose. We would rather ask four accountable questions than trade in fear about our own city.

Why this page is short. Safety and well-being is the issue where we have the least solid information, and it is the one where it is easiest to frighten people instead of informing them. We are not going to do that. What follows is limited to things we can put a question mark on and expect an answer to.

What we think is going wrong

  • Money spent, results not reported

    Real money has gone into making downtown safer. What has not been published is a plain accounting of how much, against what measure, with what result. The City's own governance review found 75% of survey respondents did not feel council reports effectively on how the City is performing, and this is a good example of why that matters.1 The tax side of this is on the real tax bill.

  • Clearing a street is not a housing policy

    Removing and discarding the belongings of people living outside moves a problem a few blocks. It does not resolve it, and it makes the next stage worse for the person it happened to. We would like the City to say what it expects that practice to achieve.

  • The province has responsibilities the City keeps absorbing

    Treatment, mental health care and the supportive housing that people leaving the street actually need are provincial responsibilities. In our view Victoria has taken on a growing share of those gaps without securing provincial funding to match. That is money not spent on the City's own core work, and it lets the province off the hook.

  • Where is the housing?

    Supportive and secure housing is the intervention with the best evidence behind it. It is also the one Victoria has least of. That connects this page directly to housing and affordability, which is where we think the answer mostly lives.

Ask every candidate

  • What has the City spent on downtown safety in this term, and what measure will you report it against?
  • Will you publish an annual results report for community safety spending?
  • What will you demand from the province, and what will you stop paying for on its behalf?
  • How many units of supportive housing will you commit to in your term?

Sources

  1. City of Victoria Governance Review, Report of Recommendations, prepared by MNP LLP, July 18, 2022. Governance review (PDF)

Where the deep detail lives

  • the OCP guide walks through the 2025 Official Community Plan clause by clause.
  • the real tax bill traces where the money went, with every figure sourced.
  • the media tracker collects what local reporters have written, sorted by issue.
  • the glossary explains the terms council uses in plain language.

The next council decides what gets measured, and reported.

Election day is Saturday, October 17, 2026. Make a plan now, while it is easy.

Make your voting plan See who is running

What has been written about this

Our members have tracked 20 pieces on this issue since January, from news reports to letters. The five most recent are below, and the notes are our members' own.

All 20 pieces on this issue

Most people who read this were sent it by someone they know.