Email Template (Updated Jan 28)

Copy and paste the following into your email

(Or click here to automatically populate the recipients in your email app)

Recipients

mayor@winnipeg.ca; vsantos@winnipeg.ca; srollins@winnipeg.ca; cgilroy@winnipeg.ca; bmayes@winnipeg.ca; jlukes@winnipeg.ca; eduncan@winnipeg.ca; rwyatt@winnipeg.ca; readie@winnipeg.ca; jorlikow@winnipeg.ca; markuschambers@winnipeg.ca; sdobson@winnipeg.ca; devi@winnipeg.ca; jschreyer@winnipeg.ca; mallard@winnipeg.ca; jbrowaty@winnipeg.ca;

Subject

Alternative Proposal for Community Connections is Not an Acceptable Compromise

Body

[Please feel free to customize the text and make sure to sign your name before sending. We do ask that you keep your message courteous as the best way to engage Mayor and Council on this vital issue. Make sure you delete these instructions and sign your name before sending.]

Dear Mayor and Members of Council,

The closure of Community Connections has cost Millennium Library 4 FTE positions. Cuts to library services, especially at the flagship branch, are unacceptable. Community Connections must be reopened to ensure all downtown residents have equitable access to library services.

The proposal to replace Community Connections in the lobby of Millennium Library with a social service agency is unacceptable for these reasons:

The social service agency does not provide library services, and library services are the core of Community Connections’ work.

All the research demonstrates that proper staffing is the number one factor that makes libraries safer, so cutting library staff makes the library less safe for both workers and patrons.

The proposed pilot would only begin in April. Cutting an essential City service in the depth of winter should be avoided at all cost. Community Connections needs to be reopened as soon as possible.

Meeting people’s needs where they are at is proven to be the most effective way to deliver services. The new proposal not only maintains the security checkpoint that is a barrier to library services for too many, it also proposes to be open just a few hours a day on weekdays only.

The new proposal does not include funding for Community Safety Hosts, who are an essential part of what makes Community Connections work. Community Safety Hosts are trained in de-escalation and trauma-informed skills in addition to standard security guard training. They have saved the City money by reducing the need for emergency services to be called to Millennium Library. This program is Indigenous-led and community-approved, and should be championed by the City.

This proposal is being considered without any consultation with the community working group that has been behind Community Connections since it was dreamed up after the initial introduction of the security checkpoint in 2019. Equipped with lived experience, cultural knowledge, and big ideas, this group has donated their time and expertise, working alongside library staff to build this successful and innovative space called Community Connections. Their voices ought to have been the first to be heard in this decision-making process. 

There is still time to save what has been a proven effective City resource. Please trust your library, the larger Community Services department, the research, and the community committee’s expertise, and reverse this cut before voting on the budget.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Background

We are urgently calling on Winnipeg City Council to reinstate funding for Community Connections because it is critical for the health of downtown Winnipeg.
Here’s how you can help:
1. Send an email using the template above.
2. Share our social media posts to your stories and ask your friends to participate.

Community Connections, an essential low-barrier Millennium Library service, closed on December 31st, 2024 because Winnipeg City Council did not allocate the necessary $628,000 operating funds to keep it open in 2025. 

BUT the budget hasn’t been approved yet so please send them a message urging them to reopen this vital and proven effective city service! 

Since 2022 Community Connections has provided one-to-one library services to visitors in the lobby of the Millennium Library, in a culturally safe, low-barrier manner. People who are unable to enter the library deserve the library services that Community Connections provides.

Serving around 100 visitors daily, staff help visitors access library services like technology, and information related to housing, employment services, counselling, food, health care, harm reduction, legal services, identification, and more.