The Ballard Alliance has launched a new program they’re calling the Neighborhood Ambassadors to enhance safety for businesses in Ballard.
The program will deploy people in pairs wearing blue Ballard Alliance-branded uniforms in the downtown area from Wednesdays to Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon and again from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Alliance says they launched the program to “provide an additional layer of safety support to local businesses and an enhanced visitor experience.”
The ambassadors, which Ballard Alliance contracted from Spear Security LLC, will have have four core functions, according to the Alliance: “Quality of life interactions, business assistance and support, visitor-focused hospitality interactions and wayfinding, and engagement with unsheltered individuals.”
District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss says he supported program in an effort to increase public safety in Ballard.
“Last year, I funded the Ballard Alliance’s Ambassador Program so that small businesses have someone to help them, social workers have a person to connect them with their clients, and to have more people on our streets working to solve daily issues,” Councilmember Strauss said in a statement.
He says it was modeled after successful similar work in the U District: “In Ballard, we are setting up this program to be scaled city wide to other neighborhoods that can benefit from a coordinated public safety program. We couldn’t do this work without partners like the U District Partnership and the Ballard Alliance.”
The Alliance says the program will work in tandem with other existing security patrols and response services and its clean streets program.
The City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development is supporting the ambassador program.
Photo: SDOT
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