The Safe Location – Safe Living project scores points at the international level and among the people of Brno

The Brno project Safe Location – Safe Living aims at increasing the safety of people and property in apartment buildings, including technical and organisational measures with the direct participation of the residents of the building. This project was selected in the spring of this year in the prestigious Mayors Challenge, which aims to inspire cities to generate innovative ideas to address problems and improve the lives of residents.  

The Brno project is reaping success in the Czech Republic and abroad 

Together with the Brno project, another twenty projects from all over Europe were selected for the Mayors Challenge finals, initiated by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Safe Location already proved its innovative approach when it received the “Best preventive project of regions, cities and municipalities” award of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic last year, and in 2011 Brno won for it the 1st place in the prestigious Urban Security Award competition.  

The Safe Location – Safe Living project was prepared in 2009 and since 2010 has been successfully implemented by the Brno Municipal Police in Brno-Nový Lískovec in an apartment building at 5 Koniklecová Street. It is a 13-story prefabricated building with 156 small-sized housing apartments that are inhabited by more than 500 residents. The building was built in 1994 with the financial participation of 13 city districts. 

Today, one-third of it is used as a temporary shelter for mothers with children and the remaining part is an ordinary tenement building, where, however, problematic or socially disadvantaged tenants are often housed. That is one of the reasons why mailboxes and doors were often broken in the building, and vandals damaged the elevator and walls in common areas. The situation has worsened because strangers were moving around the building. This occurrence could not have been effectively prevented with such a high turnover of residents.  

As part of the Safe Location – Safe Living project, Beta Control installed two new elevators, a fire alarm system, a camera system and an access system in the apartment building on Koniklecová Street. 

How the situation improved from the perspective of the residents of the building at 5 Koniklecová Street 

The apartment building at 5 Koniklecová Street was chosen for the Safe Location – Safe Living project because of the high level of crime in the building and its surroundings. The question arises: "Do people in this building and in the immediate area feel safer because of this project?” The sociological research conducted in 2009 and 2012, where the residents of the building at 5 Koniklecová Street and people from the immediate vicinity were directly interviewed, it follows that the situation has significantly improved. 

New access and camera system  

In 2009, people in the building often faced malfunctions of elevators, lighting in the building, doorbells or building phones. Thanks to the installation of the Safe House system in 2012, there was a significant improvement (satisfaction with the functionality of the technical equipment in the building increased by 46.6%). And other issues improved too. Whether it was lighting and greenery in front of the building, or in this case, which was probably the most serious problem, the movement of strangers in the building. Currently, the access system does not allow free entry of people into the building, so the cases where strangers have been seen, e.g. in the elevator or on the stairs. has been greatly reduced. Also, according to the tenants, the sense of security in the building has significantly increased thanks to the new technical equipment, and up to two-thirds of residents feel safe in the building all day (in 2009, it was only less than a third). This number also goes hand in hand with a reduced number of interventions by the Municipal Police in the building. 

Overall, the tenants expressed great satisfaction with the new security measures, especially the camera system and the building access system. As can be seen from the above comparisons, the residents of the building perceive the introduction of the Safe House system at 5 Koniklecová Street positively and tend to support expanding the camera system to the apartment corridors. 

For this reason, we can say without exaggeration that in this high-risk location the Safe House system from Beta Control helped not only to improve the technical conditions in the building, but above all the sense of increased security. 

You can find information about other successful projects on the website http://www.bezpecny-dum.cz/< 4}.  

Source of photographs: Depositphotos.com