Report

The Peterborough Police have a great interest in social programs through their mandate of community policing through a harm reduction model, which means understanding and aiding where they are able in social programs such as supportive housing. The purpose of this project was to determine the scope, amount and level of need of supportive housing in Peterborough and the surrounding areas, and then to compare these needs and models to other communities to begin the development of best practices that could be implemented in Peterborough. In these comparisons, it was essential to determine the cost of these programs, and if they effectively reduced costs and stresses on public emergency services. Major positive findings of this study indicate that supportive housing is a reliable method for the development and support of at-risk populations. While there is a lack of supportive housing for specific high risk individuals in the Peterborough area, the framework for continued and improved support does exist. Finally, supportive housing has been shown to drastically reduce the cost and stresses that high risk individuals who would greatly benefit from support, put on public emergency services, including hospital visits, emergency shelter use and 911 calls.

The purpose of this investigation is to identify best practices for facilitating programs that pair young adults with intellectual disabilities with another member of the community in order to develop a meaningful relationship between the two participants. In order to determine these best practices, seven interviews were conducted with organizations who currently facilitate such programs and an academic and grey literature search was conducted. The collected data was then compared to the current Amigos in the Community program facilitated by a local Peterborough not-for-profit agency, Heads Up For Inclusion. This comparison highlights the similarities and differences between this program and those of other established programs. Moreover, a list of suggested recommendations for the Amigos in the Community program has been developed for Heads Up for Inclusion in order to improve its' current program. One recommendation is to host more community events so as to recruit new volunteers, increase community awareness of the programs available, raise funds for the program and offer pairs an opportunity to spend more time together. Another significant recommendation is to identify barriers to inclusion for participants such as access to reliable, accessible transportation. These recommendations along with others identified throughout this report are intended to assist Heads Up for Inclusion in improving their current program and ensuring it meets the needs and interests of their clients.

The Peterborough Natural Areas Strategy was developed in 1996 to establish a natural areas corridor for the citizens of Peterborough. Ten natural areas were mapped. Within each site, core areas were identified for a total of 24 natural areas throughout the city. The environmental status of the areas has not been assessed since the development of the original strategy. This report examines each natural heritage area to determine the net gains and losses in ecological features over the past twenty years. ArcGIS was used to digitize the maps, and map analysis tools were used to determine the net gains and losses in natural heritage features. As a result of this study, it was determined that there has been no statistically significant change in the natural areas since 1996. However, an assertive conclusion cannot be made, due to the variety of limitations that pertained to this study. Instead, further studies should take place to support the claim of this research.

The purpose of this project was to determine the best practices for educating youth about drug use in Peterborough. In order to identify best practises, extensive online research was conducted to determine what the evidence says about the most effective tools and methods for delivering drug education messages, the importance of police involvement in delivering these messages and the current drug education curriculum. Surveys were administered to local organizations to capture what resources local Peterborough agencies are currently using in their youth drug education and to establish local agency's needs in order to improve youth drug education.

Precipitation gauges have historically been a valuable asset for surface water monitoring (Tokay et al​, 2010), as well as predicting climatic change and seasonal variation (Grieser, 2015). This study will focus on the performances of three precipitation gauges at the Trent Climate Station in Peterborough, Ontario. The motivation of this project is to evaluate the potential of the new Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (OMNRF) precipitation gauge for its provincial surface water monitoring network. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the new OMNRF gauge by comparing it to the data gathered from Trent's established gauges, the Tipping bucket and GEONOR models. In doing so, we hope to provide insight on whether the new model of gauge is an improvement, equivalent, or less reliable when compared with the established models. We will compare reliability, ease of use, and potential applications in order to help determine the benefits and drawbacks of the new gauge.

This report has two main purposes. The first is to identify which social service providers are involved in finding rental accommodation for clients and determining the challenges which are faced by these organizations as a consequence of landlord's concerns about renting to marginalized individuals. The second is to identify the approaches social service providers use to mitigate these landlord concerns to create best practice recommendations for the Haliburton- Kawartha Lakes-Pine Ridge (HKPR) region. Research was completed using an extensive and thorough literature review, email fact-finding and an online survey. Findings from this research included the identification of organizations within the HKPR region that work in housing and with individuals who are marginalized. The mitigation methods these organizations use such as rent supplements, arranging for repairs, and paying for damaged property to mitigate different landlord concerns were also identified. The main concerns landlords have are non-payment of rent, damaged property, and neighborhood. Innovative programs such as RentSmart Ontario and the critical role these programs play is highlighted in addition to new adaptations on the previously established Housing First ideology with the Tiny Homes program.