Edmonton will deploy more law enforcement in neighbourhoods and bars and will hire extra social workers for distressed communities as part of efforts to curb violence in the city, Mayor Stephen Mandel and Police Chief Rod Knecht announced Wednesday.

The strategy comes amid a surge in the city's homicide rate. Edmonton has had 33 homicides this year, the highest number of any community in Canada and up from 27 in all of 2010.

Plans include:

• Adding two neighbourhood-empowerment teams, in which groups of social workers and police tend to communities deemed to be distressed.
• Increasing police presence in distressed communities.
• Beefing up bylaw enforcement.
• Expanding the target area of the city's Public Safety Compliance Team, which monitors and enforces regulations on bars, clubs and entertainment venues.
• Requesting funds from the province for 24/7 delivery of social services to high-needs communities.

The extra enforcement in the city's entertainment districts aims to deter alcohol-related incidents, the city said in a news release, while providing 24-hour social services will help get some of Edmonton's 2,500 homeless people off the streets, where they're at greater risk.

"This is a societal issue, and I think it's vitally important that we understand that," Mandel said.

Mayor Stephen Mandel said the city needs to better address the needs of aboriginal residents and homeless people. CBC

"Over the last year, our property crime has been down 20 per cent, and it really has been a great effort, and at the same time our violent crime is down seven per cent. That doesn't mean it's an acceptable number. I think over the next couple years, we would hope that they would find a balance, and that we would be down 20 per cent in all areas of crime in the city."

The strategy also calls for municipal programs to be adjusted to better address the needs of aboriginal residents, homeless people and "multicultural communities."

"We really believe that by helping some of these more challenged communities have adequate recreation and access to facilities, we'll open up new different and new kinds of opportunities," the mayor said.

Homelessness link

The mayor expressed concern when he outlined the broad strokes of the strategy on Monday that more than 60 per cent of those involved in this year's homicides had at some point been homeless.

At least seven of those victims were living on the streets at the time of their deaths, including 44-year-old Eric Dexter Janvier, who was napping outside a downtown drop-in centre that was closed for the weekend when he was stabbed to death. The centre's director has said if it had the funds to stay open on weekends, Janvier wouldn't have died.

Police Chief Knecht said the anti-violence effort will see more of his officers in neighbourhoods with high levels of "social disorder," areas that he said act as a crucible for violence. But he stressed that it's not just up to police to make the city safer.

'A lot of us struggle just to keep our doors open due to funding'—Sue Keating, Youth Emergency Shelter Society

"When garbage is not picked up, needles appear in schoolyards, and playgrounds and broken windows are left unattended... there can be lower levels of community engagement, while being more susceptible to criminal behaviour," he said. "We cannot do this alone. We cannot arrest our way out of this."

The city's social agencies have also said they can play an important role in reducing violence by keeping people in vulnerable situations out of harm's way. But shelter beds, housing for people in need and programs to divert youth from the street cost money.

"A big part of the problem is that the agencies that deal proactively with the situations — you know, it's always better to prevent a problem than to react to it — I think that a lot of us struggle just to keep our doors open due to funding," Sue Keating of the Youth Emergency Shelter Society said.