What is Community Safety Fund?
The Community Safety Fund is a grant s to support effective crime prevention initiatives within local communities.
Objectives
This funding aims to:
- help prevent crime in communities
- assist people to feel safer and become more engaged in their communities
- increase knowledge in local communities about how to identify and best address local crime problems
- encourage the development of local partnerships to address local crime prevention issues
- promote widespread engagement in community crime prevention initiatives across Victoria
- strengthen the community’s understanding of the justice system.
Funding
Funding of up to $10,000 (GST ex.) is available for stream 1 projects, and funding of up to $25,000 (GST ex.) is available for stream 2 projects.
Eligible Projects
Grant funding is available under two streams:
Stream 1 – Improving safety and security
This funding stream will support projects that deter offending related to community facilities and public spaces. Eligible projects include:
- security equipment and infrastructure such as locks, vandal-proof security lighting, security screens, alarms (without video surveillance), fencing and gates
- small-scale, physical improvements and upgrades to public spaces such as streetscapes, parks and reserves. This may include the purchase of lighting, street furniture or other equipment to improve community perceptions of safety and use of these areas.
Stream 2 – Crime prevention and safety education and awareness initiatives
This funding stream will support education and awareness initiatives which focus on the following areas:
- Home safety
- Theft of and from motor vehicles
- Theft from businesses
- Theft of personal property in public places
- Understanding the Victorian justice system
Eligible Applicants
An organisation can apply for a grant if it is one of the following:
- a not-for-profit organisation that is a legal entity (for example an incorporated association, incorporated cooperative or Indigenous corporation)
- a Victorian council.
Timing
Applications close 18 October 2019.
More Information
Media Release
Over 63 new crime prevention initiatives will be rolled out across Victoria, thanks to a funding boost from the Andrews Labor Government’s Community Safety Fund.
The Labor Government is investing over $700,000 from the fund across 45 not-for-profit groups and 16 local councils, with the Hindmarsh Shire and Brimbank City councils each receiving grants for two projects.
The Community Safety Fund provides grants of up to $25,000 for Victorian councils and community organisations to deliver projects tackling local crime issues and to support initiatives that help to boost understanding of the justice system.
Projects to receive funding under the latest round include a range of security lighting and safety upgrades – such as new lighting for the Watt Street car park in Sunshine to improve community safety and deter anti-social behaviour.
Bollards, barrier gates and fire and vandal proof seats will also be installed at three popular swimming reserves in Wodonga, including the Kiewa River, Murray River and Travellers Creek to encourage more community use and help deter vandalism.
In Melbourne’s north, a new education program will assist newly arrived African communities in Flemington, newly settled Syrian and Assyrian Chaldean communities in Hume, and newly arrived women from Pakistan and Syrian communities living in Fawkner.
The program will identify key safety issues impacting those communities and educate participants about crime prevention strategies for motor vehicle theft, home safety, personal property and how to report crime to police.
Grants are provided across two categories, with one for up to $10,000 for projects preventing crime in and around community facilities and public spaces, and up to $25,000 to support education and awareness projects about home safety, personal property and theft reduction.
Since 2015, the government has provided almost $3.7 million in Community Safety Fund grants to support 523 projects across Victoria.
The grants form part of the government’s $25 million investment in the Community Crime Prevention Program, which aims to reduce crime and its root causes.
