A new survey released by the Municipal District of St. Stephen (MDSS) reveals some insight into the perception of community safety.
It was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Safer Communities (CCFSC) and was presented to the council in June.
The survey was voluntary and roughly 370 people responded to it, with about 85 per cent of respondents being white and just 5.8 per cent were racialized.
Hayley Moody, a researcher with the CCFSC, presented the findings of the survey. She said the majority of respondents were between the ages of 25 and 65.
It was largely women who filled out the survey and about 47 per cent of respondents were from Ward 2 – which is considered the most urban area of St. Stephen.
“When people who are living in poverty or might be suffering from substance use are concentrating in a single area … it becomes this vivid symbolic reminder of everything that is wrong,”
Roughly 33.8 per cent of the respondents made $100,000 or more in income, with only 5.8 per cent of respondents taking in less than $19,999.
“The demographics suggest that the survey results are shaped by voices of the relatively wealthy and therefore might not fully reflect residents who experience intersecting barriers or marginalization,” she said to the council.
She added it is not uncommon for survey demographics to look like this due to the time and resources it takes to complete it.
“While this survey provides valuable insight … into some community perceptions, it should just be treated as one source of information,” she said.
In recent years, St. Stephen, like many other more rural communities, has experienced a rise in homelessness as the housing crisis continues to impact more people.
It has set up a permanent shelter on King Street, which has faced some issues, including being issued a community order under the Department of Justice and Public Safety.
What the survey showed
There were some issues the survey identified that were going well, according to the CCFSC.
About 78 per cent of respondents said their housing met their needs. Another 79 per cent rated their mental health as good, very good or excellent.
It showed 1 in 5 respondents rated their mental health as fair or poor, especially in lower incomes households. Moody said lower income families were also more likely to report unmet housing needs.
Another 40 per cent rated little or not control over decisions in their lives. The survey showed an overall underlying dissatisfaction.
It said there was some variation on the sense of belonging in the community and trust, with more racialized people feeling less belonging.
A vast majority of respondents relied on word of mouth, personal experience or Facebook to get information about community safety.
Most identified police and mental health as important to community safety.
Moody explained 85 per cent of respondents felt safe in their personal spaces, like at home, and while driving. Even after dark, the survey showed, two-thirds felt safe at home or work.
However, it said about 56.8 per cent feel concerned about experiencing crime, and 38.3 per cent said worry about crime prevents them from doing things they want to do.
It said solutions like moving shelters or policing visible poverty are rooted in stigma.
The survey said respondents also perceived an increase is substance use, primarily fentanyl and crystal meth. It showed 90 per cent believed substance use had increased. Some also identified harm reduction as areas of concern.
It identified some ways to look at these issues, including reducing the stigma around homelessness, substance use and harm reduction. Additionally, it recommended the municipality work toward decreasing polarization, but also address the social and cultural infrastructure needed to promote connection.
Eric Weissman is an associate professor at the University New Brunswick in Social Science and uses a lived-experience to approach his work and research.
He said the survey did not surprise him.
“We learned a lot about groups of people in that area and their perceptions,” he said, adding he didn’t see a lot of lived-experience reflected in the results of the survey.
He said it looks at the prevalence of the perceptions, not the problem.
“They’re not looking at the thing itself,” he said, explaining there is nothing wrong with that type of information. “In my opinion, it’s valid … but it’s pretty lopsided.”
There are concentrations of poverty, both urban and rural areas.
“When people who are living in poverty or might be suffering from substance use are concentrating in a single area … it becomes this vivid symbolic reminder of everything that is wrong,” he said. “It’s really hard to turn our head away from that and it is also very easy to focus all the blame of the things we were afraid of on those areas.”
The creation of community wellness
He said he believes the municipality is on the right path in creating a wellness plan for the community.
“They talked about the area and themes that need to be worked on,” he said. “They’re interested in how to implement and that’s about tactics.”
He said implementing solutions to reach community wellness is the hardest part.
Often, Weissman explained, there are life course individuals experiencing homelessness and substance use that are unseen.
“No matter what your life course looks like, something could come along and derail it,” he said.
For him, it might mean looking at what has worked in the past, understanding the pressures facing individuals like the housing crisis and the cost of living are making community wellness harder to achieve.
“It’s more complicated than just putting measures in place,” he said.
Audrey Monette, CCFSC’s director of engagement and services, told the council applying the wellness lens allows policy to move upstream.
“The idea is if we can intervene and put our resources earlier on in the process to ensure that people’s needs are being met, to ensure people have a sense of belonging, that their health is good, that they trust their neighbours, those are pieces of wellbeing that … we can prevent those instances of violence and crime,” she said.
She said research shows prevention through the wellness model is the best way to have better outcomes for communities.
Coun. Joyce Wright asked Monette whether other studies showed that communities felt they were outliers when it came to increases in crime.
“We do often see that folks think their community is experiencing more crime than others,” Monette said.
Deputy Mayor Ghislaine Wheaton wanted to see whether there was a way to get the other perspectives of people who are less well-resourced.
Monette explained it often involves more direct approaches to reaching people with less resources and meeting them where they’re at.
The council has discussed next steps including creating a wellness plan, explaining much of the things required to implement solutions do not fall under their mandate.
Municipalities have limited scope to create policy around housing, policing, and front-line resources, but are grappling with these issues very directly.
Mayor Allan MacEachern said he would like to see the council hold the provincial government to account on things the community wants to achieve, including measurable metrics.
