Kelowna residents think crime is on the rise, but 96% feel safe in their neighbourhood

A new community safety survey indicates that many residents (96%) feel “very safe” or “somewhat safe” in their neighbourhood during the daytime and 77% say they feel a strong sense of belonging in their neighbourhood.

The report, which was done by Leger and commissioned by the city, indicates that while the number of residents who claim they feel safe in their neighbourhoods is still high, it is down from the 99% reported in 2019.

The survey says that nearly half of residents (41%) say the downtown core feels less safe, up from the 31% recorded in 2019.

Nearly a quarter of respondents (22%) said that the general Rutland area also felt less safe. This is up from the 14% recorded in 2019.

However, the safety survey also found that five in 10 residents think that crime has increased in Kelowna overall.

What’s more, a reported 53% of residents feel that violent crime has increased in Kelowna.

The report explains that 25% of the survey respondents said they had been a victim of crime in the past 12 months, similar to the 28% recorded in 2018.

Nine out of 10 residents who identified as a victim of crime say they had experienced property crime while one in 10 reported being a victim of a violent crime.

Although many residents said they felt safe during the daytime, one quarter of respondents said they felt unsafe in their neighbourhood at night.

The report says that recent victims of crime and those with a weak sense of belonging in their neighbourhoods were more likely to feel this way.

In addition, women and recent victims of crime were more inclined to be worried about becoming a victim of theft or other crimes.

Despite residents thinking that crime has increased in the city, 61% of residents indicated that it never or rarely impacts their lives while 18% thought it only occasionally impacted their lives.

Victims of a crime were less likely to indicate that it never or occasionally impacts their lives.

Although one quarter of respondents said they identified as a victim of crime in the past year, more than half (52%) did not report the incident to police, a 6% increase from 2019.

The top three reasons for not reporting a crime included feeling the police could not do anything, that the crime was too small and that the police would not do anything.

Residents identified the following as being the most important crime-related problems in the city:

• Property crime remains the most important at 43%, similar to 2019 (45%).

• Residents identified drug related and drug use type problems as second most important at 29%, a reduction of 9% from 2019 (38%).

• Assault, violence and shooting offences was identified third at 13%, an increase of 5% compared to 2019 (8%).

The full results of the survey will be presented to Kelowna City Council on Monday, May 16.