TO: Mayor and City Council
THROUGH: Krishna Namburi, Interim City Manager
FROM: Dan Atchison, City Attorney
SUBJECT:
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Downtown public safety
Ward(s): 1 & 2
Councilor(s): All Councilors
Neighborhood(s): CANDO
Result Area(s): Safe and Healthy Community, Strong and Diverse Economy, and Welcoming and Livable Community.
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SUMMARY:
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This report outlines options for the City to enhance public safety in downtown Salem, challenges in affecting change, and potential options to enhance public safety in the short and long term.end
ISSUE:
Information only.
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Information only.
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FACTS AND FINDINGS:
At the June 9, 2025, City Council meeting, Interim City Manager Namburi indicated that staff would provide a report on options to enhance public safety in the downtown.
“Public safety” in the context of this report, includes not only preventing crimes, but fostering a welcoming and vibrant city core, where residents and visitors feel safe, and local business thrives.
Conditions in downtown Salem
Salem’s Historic Downtown is a vibrant commercial district, home to restaurants, local businesses, and a growing number of residential and mixed-use developments. As larger retailers like Nordstrom and JC Penney transition to other locations, downtown is evolving into a hub for smaller businesses and residents.
Downtown is also a focal point for providing social services, to meet critical support needs of unsheltered residents and individuals in crisis. This concentration of services for behavioral health, mental health, addiction, and other needs has created challenges for visitors, residents, and businesses. Visitors may encounter encampments or observe behaviors stemming from untreated crises, which can affect their perception of safety and livability. Primary concerns include criminal activity, encampments, unexpected challenging and belligerent behavior.
City’s current approach to addressing public safety in the downtown
The City of Salem provides Police and Fire response to calls, coordinates with Marion County for psychiatric crisis care, coordinates with non-profit service providers to meet individual needs (ARCHES, UGM, Church at the Park, etc.), connects to individuals through Homeless Services Team (housed in Salem Police Department) and cleans public spaces through SOS Team (housed in City Manager’s Office and Community Services Department), and makes referrals to treatment providers, sobering service (Bridgeway), and a limited volume health response (Northwest Human Services).
The City’s approach to addressing public safety in the downtown has changed over the years. The approach is influenced by changes in crime rates, economic development or housing priorities, changes to policies and laws at the State and County level, societal factors like the pandemic, budget constraints, and availability of resources.
Issues that affect public safety
The downtown experiences fluctuations in crime similar to other areas of the city and state. The effects and perception of crime occurring in the downtown are often more visible and acutely felt due to the concentration of business and people in the downtown and the central role downtown plays on the overall Salem community.
Common concerns regarding crime and code violations in the downtown include theft, open illegal drug use, shoplifting, vandalism, illegal camping, littering and human waste. While violent and more serious crimes are less common overall, data shows that violent crime has risen by 56% since 2020 to 2024.
Behaviors that are not illegal but negatively affect maintaining a safe and welcoming downtown include people experiencing a mental health crisis or public intoxication. Many of the behaviors causing concern have a nexus to houseless individuals who live in or near downtown or visit downtown.
Challenges to addressing these issues
State law limits the City’s ability to regulate camping. Regardless of regulations, other factors such as a lack of resources at the State Hospital, county jails and within our community, limit our ability to affect behaviors.
Police work diligently to gain voluntary compliance with the City’s camping restrictions and work directly with service providers. In rare instances, Police issue citations for illegal camping or trespass. When an arrest is warranted, the Marion County Jail typically will not book or lodge individuals that have been cited under the City’s Code, due to jail capacity and other factors. While having the ability to remove an individual from an area would help, the City will not solve these problems through a criminal enforcement approach alone.
Over the past few years, a lack of funding has resulted in elimination of specialized Police teams (like the downtown bicycle team) that could address some of the impacts of homelessness. Both Marion and Polk Counties’ lost grant funding which resulted in the loss of the behavioral health teams, which was a co-response model of law enforcement and a qualified mental health professional, that could respond in some instances.
Lastly, systemic problems at the State Hospital, from lack of staffing and legal requirements to commit individuals to the Hospital for evaluation and treatment further inhibit the system’s ability to address individual needs, when this resource may be warranted.
City budget challenges and capacity constraints
For more than fifteen years, increasing service demands without commensurate staffing increases have degraded specialized police services, most recently exemplified by the elimination of the downtown bicycle team. Violent crime in Salem has been steadily increasing <https://www.cityofsalem.net/home/showpublisheddocument/18424/638097318386700000> for over a decade, while police staffing has not. Salem has the second-highest violent crime rate in Oregon, yet it has the lowest police staffing ratio among Oregon's eight largest cities.
In effect, the Police Department has shifted from a proactive to a reactive policing model, which hampers crime prevention efforts.
Vacancies have compounded the problem; however, three years of record-level hiring have reduced the vacancy rate from ten to five percent, which is more in line with industry standards for a larger police agency.
Recommendations to address public safety in downtown
1. Immediate
A. Enhance Police visibility downtown and in Northeast Salem by allocating additional overtime assignments funded by salary savings.
Increasing police visibility in our two known areas of highest risk can be accomplished by leveraging our existing hot spot policing model, known as Intelligence, Communications, and Planning (ICAP).
ICAP is a contemporary crime and blight reduction model that focuses limited resources on areas of highest risk and need. Notably, the strategy emphasizes a balanced approach that includes enforcement efforts alongside community engagement and crime prevention. The model also welcomes partnerships and collaboration, allowing other city departments and organizations to align their resources in support of this effort.
Through ICAP and our recent five-year shooting analysis <https://www.cityofsalem.net/home/showpublisheddocument/21233/638357460757370000> of shootings, we know there are consistently two areas of highest need in Salem: downtown and northeast. As an understaffed agency, we have not been able to allocate additional resources to both regions. Instead, we have shifted focus between these two areas each month. The recent elimination of the downtown bike team makes this even more challenging.
The costs for increased police overtime assignments will vary depending on the desired level of coverage. At this point, our plan is to have two tenured officers work eight hours per day to provide coverage for the two hotspots. We anticipate utilizing salary savings to offset these expenses. However, salary savings are finite, and any increased staffing presence carries a cost. We will closely monitor the fund balance to ensure the FY27 budget is not adversely impacted by this change and will make adjustments as necessary.
The department is currently budgeted to hire 10 additional FTEs. While active recruitment is underway, it will take several months to fully onboard these new staff. In the meantime, using salary savings to fund these overtime assignments would help temporarily provide these services until those positions are filled.
2. Near-term, Mid-FY26:
A. Fund two additional Homeless Services Team (HST) Police officers in Mid-FY26 to expand coverage to seven days per week.
Ongoing discussions to expand the Homeless Services Team (HST) and the Salem Outreach and Livability Services team (SOS) partnership have stalled due to a lack of sustainable funding. For consistent coverage and efficiency, the team’s services should be expanded to seven days per week, requiring two additional Police officer positions. Identifying and securing sustainable funding in the next budget cycle should be a priority.
B. Pilot Salem Fire Department Community Health - Co-response Model
A co-response pilot program will help address the growing need for specialized emergency response in downtown Salem, where many public safety challenges stem from homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health issues. The proposal is to deploy integrated teams consisting of a paramedic, EMT-basic, and mental health clinician to incidents involving emotional disturbance, overdoses, and other health emergencies while also conducting proactive outreach to prevent emergencies before they occur.
The co-response model offers dual benefits: enhanced emergency response capabilities that combine advanced life support medical care with specialized mental health intervention, and proactive community outreach that connects at-risk individuals to essential services including shelter, counseling, medical care, and substance abuse treatment. This approach will optimize Fire Department resources by redirecting appropriate calls to specialized teams, allowing traditional fire services to focus on their core mission while providing more effective care for vulnerable populations.
The six-month pilot program will operate with one team working five days per week, with costs of approximately $196,302 for Salem Fire Department personnel and equipment.
The program would be contingent on Marion County funding the mental health clinician position. Program supervision will be provided by the Emergency Medical Services Deputy Fire Chief with medical direction from the Salem Fire Department Medical Director. Success will be measured through response metrics, clinical outcomes, system impact, and community safety improvements, with the goal of demonstrating proof of concept for potential program expansion to two teams providing seven-day coverage.
3. Long-term (FY27)
A. Fund eight additional Police officer positions in FY27 to restore a dedicated downtown bicycle team.
Salem’s dedicated downtown policing team should be restored to its full capacity of eight officers as soon as possible. Many larger cities have proactive policing teams in their downtown cores, as these areas serve as economic, cultural, and social hubs. Such teams play a vital role in maintaining public safety, order, and quality of life in areas with high visibility and foot traffic.
Increasing the public safety presence in the downtown offers proactive teams to:
• Address issues before they escalate, targeting repeat offenders, chronic nuisance locations, and patterns of crime (e.g., theft, drug activity, assaults).
• Work closely with business owners, service providers, and city departments to resolve underlying issues.
• Ensure people feel safe coming downtown to work, shop, and enjoy events, supporting the local economy
• Collaborate with outreach workers, social services, and crisis response teams to provide resources or divert individuals from the criminal justice system when necessary
• Enhance public confidence and perceived safety, opportunities to engage with the community and foster relationships.
B. Restore SOS Team funding.
The Salem Outreach and Livability Services (SOS) team was formed in 2022 to address unsheltered homelessness and related community concerns. The team includes five Community Services staff who work in partnership with the Salem Police Department’s Homeless Services Team. Their role is to mitigate debris across the city, including in downtown parks and public rights-of-way. Beginning July 1, 2026, this team is without a sustainable funding source. With additional sustainable funding, this team could be expanded to provide seven-day per week coverage. The estimated cost for the SOS Team at current staffing levels for FY27 is $974,571. If the SOS were expanded in FY27, by adding three parks maintenance operators, a parks project coordinator, and additional truck and an additional skid steer, the total cost would be approximately $1,755,463 ($185,000 of which would be one-time costs for equipment).
Please note that the viability of a near mid-term and Long-Term solutions will depend on projected revenues and the overall financial forecast for the General Fund.
Possibilities for future funding to support public safety downtown
Immediate next steps to increase public safety in downtown can be accomplished within existing funding allocations, relying on additional overtime assignments funded by salary savings. A mid-FY26 review of progress would occur in alignment with the Budget Committee’s receipt of the five-year financial forecast. This mid-FY26 check-in offers insights into progress on other, related initiatives which may provide additional funding for increasing safety and livability of the downtown - including downtown paid parking, possibility of reinvesting a portion of EMS revenue following City provision of EMS after July 1, 2025. Staff anticipate revenue shifts following urban renewal closures and the possibility of Capitol District funding. Other options to consider to increase funding capacity for these types of services may include an economic improvement district or downtown improvement district.
BACKGROUND:
At the June 9, 2025, City Council meeting, Mayor Julie Hoy indicated she would bring a motion at the June 23, 2025, meeting to direct staff to report on ways to increase police presence in the downtown to improve public safety. This report is responsive to that request and provides more comprehensive information concerning public safety and livability in the downtown.
Dan Atchison
City Attorney
Attachments:
1. Activities to increase available affordable housing, sheltering, and supportive services.
2. Feedback from the June 18, 2025, State of Downtown event sponsored and organized by Salem Main Street (added as an addition after the event occurred).