York Regional Police received a boost to help tackle its top priorities of road safety, drug control, and property crime enforcement with a community safety grant of more than $14 million from the province.
The Ministry of the Solicitor General announded funding of $14,060,353 yesterday for the York Regional Police Services Board, which is to be used for officer training to deal with drug-impaired driving offences and to support frontline and patrol officers in high-density crime areas to ensure effective investigations of property crimes.
The grant funding will also help expand York Regional Police’s mental health support team, which responds to the increasing number of mental health-related calls, as well as to extend programs for senior safety, crime prevention and youth engagement.
The community safety and policing grant focuses on addressing both local and provincial community safety priorities.
The Ontario government is providing police services across the province with the resources they need to combat crime and keep communities safe by investing $195 million through the province's new Community Safety and Policing (CSP) Grant program over the next three years, according to the ministry.
Through the local priorities funding stream, 89 police services boards will be allocated a total of $181 million to address issues that were identified by their communities as local areas of focus.
These include collaboration between the police and community organizations to help individuals suffering from mental health issues and addictions, such as mobile crisis response teams, as well as programs to combat impaired driving, property crime and other public safety concerns.
In addition, approximately $14 million will be allocated to 18 police services boards under the provincial priorities funding stream to address gun and gang violence, sexual violence and harassment, and human trafficking.
