London city council to spend $31,000 on UN Safe Cities effort

The group at the helm of London’s drive to become part of the UN Women Safe City program is getting what it asked for — and a little bit more — to help it as it moves forward in the initiative.

Full council signed off on $31,000 for Anova, a women’s shelter and support centre, to customize an online app that would allow Londoners to log areas where they’ve experienced harassment or felt unsafe.

Anova is leading the local efforts and asked the city for $16,000 to cover the costs and 20 hours of city staff time to help organize it.

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Councillors agreed to that and an additional $15,000 so the agency can hire someone else to take over the work from the staff member within a couple of months.

Some councillors felt the map could lead to a bad perception of some areas or businesses, but Coun. Tanya Park said people can already find bad reviews online.

“This is a great tool for us to use to look at public spaces, where we need to make changes, or just to the information for women and girls, so they know where they can be to feel safe.”

Speaking during Tuesday’s meeting, Coun. Michael van Holst questioned if the map would actually be helpful and said perhaps the city should focus on finding solutions.

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Coun. Maureen Cassidy says in order to move forward with finding solutions, they first had to have the data. She says it’s a requirement of the UN program.

“Before we can even take steps to fix it and solve the problem, we have to have the data.”

Work will begin next month on gathering information from community stakeholders. Officials are hoping to launch the app in September.