Is Vancouver safer, a year after Ken Sim became mayor?

Public safety in Vancouver was a major part of Ken Sim’s election platform.

With a year of being mayor now behind him, the question remains: is the city safer now than it was before he took office?

“When you look at most of the data, absolutely it’s gotten safer. However, that means a hill of beans to anyone who’s been a victim of crime, or a violent incident, or someone that has a business who’s had their place tagged, or people who do not feel safe walking on the streets,” Sim told CityNews in a year-end one-on-one interview Wednesday.

“So, I don’t like to point to data and say, ‘hey, yeah, things are safer,’ because that would be completely out of touch. So, although it has gotten safer, I do want to let the residents of Vancouver know: we are a big city now, and big cities have issues like this. It’s how you react to them.”

A major pillar of Sim’s campaign was the promise of hiring 100 additional Vancouver Police officers, along with 100 mental health workers, to address crime concerns.

While there has been progress on the officer front, just 10 mental health workers have been brought on so far.

“We have to rely on the health authority — but I look at it a little differently. They (Vancouver Coastal Health) are doing us a favour, they have been great partners, they’ve taken our commitment of support and they put it into an operational plan, and they’re doing us a favour by trying to help hire these individuals,” the mayor said.

He admits 10 is a far cry from the nurses promised, but Sim says the city is still committed to supporting VCH in its efforts to bring the full 100 on.

Sim says the 10 hired are also already making a difference.

“For example, one of those individuals is working triaging calls with the VPD, and that person is actually routing a lot of calls that would have, traditionally, been responded to by police, that aren’t police calls, they’re actually mental health calls. So there’s a big win there,” he explained.

“The other nine-plus individuals, we’ve had similar, positive experiences dealing with calls before they become major incidents. So, we’re making progress, but on the mental health worker side, we have a lot more work to do. And it’s been slower than we’d like.”

While he looks ahead to a new year, Sim says the city needs other levels of government to help Vancouver address public safety. He’s hopeful the federal government will be able to help improve the situation, noting a bill on bail reform is expected to become law this year.