An Award for Waterloo Regional Police
Posted Jun 13, 2010 06:49:11 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Waterloo Regional Police have received an award for helping some residents of a crack house help themselves.
Constable Rob Davis says he and other officers, in partnership with some fifteen local social agencies, started what came to be known as the “Just Us” program about two years ago.
Davis says the idea was crime prevention is better than law enforcement after the fact, and the program started with sixty-six people living in a single crack house in Waterloo.
Davis says most of those people had “concurrent disorders,” namely addictions and mental health problems at the same time.
He and aid agencies sat down to hear the voices of the people from the house, and heard their needs for food, homecare, even simple access to a phone.
Davis says today, these people are looking after themselves — there’s even a part-time doctor’s clinic set up in the house now.
Davis says police definitely noticed a reduction in crime in the area of the house after the program started.
He says the house residents themselves chose to call the program “Just Us.”
Davis says Just Us has now branched out and is currently working in Kitchener’s downtown core.
Davis and the program have received a Community Policing Award from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.
