Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan
Adopted on July 3, 2025, the City's Community Safety and Wellbeing (CSWB) Plan identifies actions for the City, in collaboration with multi-sector partners, to help make the community safer and more inclusive for everyone. The Plan's development was guided by an 11-member Community Leaders Panel convened by Mayor Marianne Alto.
City Acts on Community Safety
On July 2, 2025, Mayor Marianne Alto announced in a mayor's media release that the City will spend $10.35 million to address community safety as it implements its first actions of its Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan. Initial actions will focus on Pandora, Princess and downtown. Read the City Acts on Community Safety media release.
Plan Adopted
Input from surveys, open houses/pop-ups, community dialogues and Muflehun’s comparator data informed the Community Safety and Wellbeing (CSWB) Plan’s recommended actions that were presented to City Council for consideration at the June 19, 2025 Committee of the Whole Meeting.
The Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan was adopted by Council at the July 3, 2025 Daytime Council Meeting.
Read the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan. The Plan's appendices are located under "Documents" in the sidebar.
Public Engagement Activities
The Community Safety and Wellbeing survey closed on May 12, 2024. Thank you those who participated.
In addition to the survey and a series of open houses/pop-ups held in June and July 2024, the City worked with local facilitators who reached out to close to 20 local organizations to create safe and supported dialogues about wellbeing and safety.
Community conversations were also held with members of the Songhees Nation and local Indigenous organizations and the communities they serve.
Individuals who work within an organization, sector or system in Victoria were invited to complete a survey designed to assess perspectives on systemic challenges and changes that would help foster community safety and wellbeing.
“This public engagement will help us understand people’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions and opinions about wellbeing and safety, and encourage them to share their ideas on possible solutions. Our Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan will include strategies to enhance the quality of life for our community – residents housed and unhoused, businesses, non-profits, workers of all kinds – to create a community that is safe and inclusive for everyone. The Plan will tackle a range of social issues, embracing an array of solutions.” - Mayor Marianne Alto
Background
In August 2023, an 11-member Community Leaders Panel was convened by Mayor Alto to guide the draft Plan’s development and includes Indigenous, business, public health, housing, law enforcement, fire prevention, local service provider and neighbourhood leaders.
To help inform Victoria’s Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, Muflehun, a resource centre that conducts research and analysis of current hate and extremism challenges, is deriving data from a variety of Canadian sources to compare data on crime, safety and hate in six communities to create comparators for local data.