As homelessness and mental-health challenges continue to grow in Greater Victoria, municipalities are increasingly adapting their front-line responses. Both Victoria and Saanich have expanded or explored models that pair police with social workers, mental-health clinicians, or other civilian specialists. These approaches aim to provide more coordinated support, particularly during crises that require both safety and social-service expertise.
The shift comes amid broader questions about the distribution of responsibilities between local and provincial governments. In British Columbia, the provincial government holds primary responsibility for housing support, homelessness outreach, health care, addictions treatment, and supportive housing. This is reflected in the province’s own homelessness strategy, Belonging in B.C., which outlines provincially funded outreach services, housing solutions, and health-related supports.¹
At the municipal level, however, the practical realities of emergency response often fall to police departments, which operate 24 hours a day and are required to attend a wide range of calls. In Victoria, this has meant a substantial volume of mental-health and homelessness-related calls for the Victoria Police Department. The department has developed community partnerships and integrated response teams to better manage situations where social-service needs and safety concerns overlap.
Saanich faces similar pressures, though on a different scale. While the municipality has fewer large encampments and less concentrated street homelessness than Victoria, its police service has also emphasized community-oriented approaches and partnerships designed to address mental-health and social-service needs alongside traditional policing. Such models are intended to reduce risk, improve outcomes for individuals in crisis, and connect people with appropriate services more quickly.
Human-rights and housing researchers have noted that municipalities across the province increasingly find themselves responding to system gaps in health care, mental-health services, and housing availability.² As these gaps become more visible at the local level, police–social work partnerships emerge as practical tools — though not replacements — for broader social supports.
The result is a landscape where municipalities with different budgets, service demands, and population densities are adapting to similar pressures in distinct ways. Victoria’s downtown role as a regional service hub means it experiences higher call volumes and more acute social-service needs. Saanich, with more dispersed neighbourhoods, faces challenges that are growing but differ in concentration and intensity.
What unites both municipalities is the need to respond quickly and effectively to situations involving vulnerable residents. Police–social service partnerships offer one way to do that, but this should be delivered in a way that lets the Government of BC walk away from their responsibilities.
Citations
Government of British Columbia — Homelessness Services (Belonging in B.C.):
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/affordable-and-social-housing/homelessness
B.C. Human Rights Commissioner — Encampment Policy Brief:
https://bchumanrights.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2023.09.13_Encampment-Brief.pdf
