Outreach better investment than security guards in Cambridge, agencies say

Michael Parkinson, community engagement co-ordinator at Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, said outreach workers often have substandard salaries and working conditions, despite the best efforts and intentions of their employers in the not-for-profit sector.

“Most of the outreach people I know are thoroughly burnt out from the daily struggle to overcome downstream structural deficiencies,” Parkinson said. “The steady stream of overdose deaths from a toxic drug market has left many workers deeply traumatized without the supports and benefits available in other helping professions.

“And yet outreach workers are among our best options for a better future for a group of people without any trust left in the ‘system,’” he said.

“Outreach workers should have pay equity,” McKechnie said, “especially due to when an outreach worker engages, it can lessen or eliminate the possibility of negative encounters with law enforcement or security. “More importantly it means an intervention of love, empathy and compassion and not necessarily one of rules and restriction. Outreach is rarely a negative experience for community. If done properly it is non-judgmental and empowering.”

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