‘Task force’ will develop public safety strategy for downtown

By Collin Gallant on February 4, 2025.

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Potential membership and scope of a “city-led task force” to improve public safety downtown was outlined to council on Monday.

Last October,city council approved a four-item priority list for the final year of the term, including that the city “lead a provincial/municipal/community urgent response to social disorder.”

An outline developed by staff and presented to council this week says the 14-person, high-profile committee would meet twice weekly over the next year and have strategy developed by mid-summer.

Membership would include Mayor Linnsie Clark and Coun. Cassi Hider (as head of council’s public services committee), along with a senior staff member, according to the proposal.

It includes local MLAs Danielle Smith and Justin Wright, and Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz, or delegated staff members.

Representatives would also come from the Medicine Hat Community Housing Society, Mustard Seed, Miywasin Friendship Centre, the Medicine Hat Police Service, Alberta Health Services, Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce and two public members.

It would recommend strategies in six months to “reduce impacts of homelessness, mental health, addition and poverty, balancing individual and community needs.”

It would also co-ordinate efforts of government and social service agencies, determine best practices, monitor results and generally foster co-operation and community awareness.

In late December MLA Justin Wright told the News that discussions began last spring on advancing a plan to launch a pilot program in the Hat, but the work may be paused until movement was made on a permanent shelter.

The idea, he said, would be to create a navigation hub – similar to what was set up after homeless encampments in Calgary and Edmonton were broken up by police last year – but on a smaller scale for mid-sized cities.

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