Toronto police have paused requests for new community safety hubs while the force develops a way to assess whether the locations are delivering their intended results, Chief Myron Demkiw says.

The pause follows strong demand for additional hubs, CBC Toronto’s Isaac Callan reported. Four currently operate at Dufferin Mall, Fairview Mall, Lawrence Heights and Shops at Don Mills, offering places for residents to speak with officers in what police describe as a “non-enforcement setting.”

The first opened at Fairview Mall in early 2025. The newest location opened at Dufferin Mall in September.

Speaking at an unrelated news conference on Nov. 2, Demkiw said interest in the facilities had prompted the decision to stop taking further applications while police establish evaluation measures.

“We have many requests coming in,” he said. “I’ve asked the team to pause so we can figure out some evaluation metrics to ensure that we’re having the outcomes we expect before we start rolling out broadly, given the amount of interest there is.”

Demkiw said he expected the evaluation to show a “huge value-add.” Police describe the hubs as a way to strengthen crime prevention through more visible deployments.

Toronto Police Association vice-president Brian Callanan told CBC that earlier police spaces, including one at the Eaton Centre, gave residents opportunities to meet officers without calling for service or entering a police station. He believes the hubs can offer similar benefits.

But lawyer and human rights activist Selwyn Pieters said the choice of locations matters. He suggested busy areas such as Sankofa Square could benefit from officers being available to respond to crime, while expressing concern about proactive deployments in malls and on the subway.

Pieters questioned how police interactions could affect people with mental illness, particularly those who are racialized or Indigenous. His concerns draw partly on police data released in 2022 showing Black and Indigenous people were disproportionately affected by use of force.

Despite the hub pause, plans are continuing for a police substation at Union Station in space funded by Metrolinx. The location is also intended to accommodate services addressing addiction and mental health.

Mayor Olivia Chow described that initiative on Nov. 2 as a different kind of pilot, bringing police, mental health crisis workers, security staff and Streets to Homes workers into a coordinated response rather than having each service operate separately.

Sources