Posted on Oct. 1: Students, residents open community policing centre in Westdale

McMaster University students, police and the Westdale community have joined forces to operate a west end community policing centre.

When area residents drop in to complain about loud parties, they are likely to find a university student behind the front desk, serving as the volunteer ready to hear their concerns.

The centre, above The Picture Frame on King Street West, opened yesterday.

Constable Jack Vander Pol, Hamilton police school liaison officer for the area, said the partnership between the university, the students and the police provides a chance for everyone involved in the traditional friction between student houses and residents to get to know one another and solve problems together.

The University and the school's student union each put $3,000 into the project.

“It's a good thing for the students too,” Vander Pol said yesterday. “Putting money into it, the students are taking ownership of the problems and the solutions.

“There are a lot of resources students can draw on through the centre to help with housing standards problems and stuff like that.

“This is the first such partnership for the MSU and it shows how far we've come,” he adds.

Kate MacDonald is director of the MSU's student community support network which handles relations between university students and the community. She said the partnership with the police, the Westdale Business Improvement Area, and the Ainslie-Wood residents is a good fit.

MSU president Neville Boney said the centre offers a chance for the students to contribute to the community and be seen in a positive light.

He also believes Mac student volunteers at the centre can be a help as role models for younger high school students who have been giving area residents a fair amount of grief with graffiti and other petty crimes.

Both Boney and MacDonald say the MSU's involvement with the centre can only lead to better relations between students and the community in the future.

Vander Pol points out that the community response branch has been trying to set up a centre in the west end for three years.

“It was going nowhere, really, because we'd get a line on a site and someone else would get it.

“Then Paul and Shelagh Snider suggested we could use the storage space over The Picture Frame, and it all came together from there.”

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