After nearly 25 years living in Ottawa’s Golden Triangle, Rob Decker says he has watched the challenges facing Somerset Ward become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Now, the longtime community volunteer is running for city council, arguing the downtown ward needs a change in leadership and a renewed focus on homelessness, addiction, public safety and revitalizing its struggling commercial streets.
Decker has spent years involved in community organizations, including roughly seven years with the Centretown Community Association, where he served as vice-president and later president. He also spent about seven years involved with Daybreak Housing, a non-profit housing organization, including two terms as president.
Decker resigned as president of the community association in April as he prepared to challenge incumbent Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster.
“The decline in the ward is noticeable, and for the most part, it’s all been under the leadership or the lack of leadership of Ariel,” he said.
Decker said improving what he calls “customer service” at city hall — including responding to residents’ emails and phone calls — would be a priority. But since his campaign began knocking on doors in June, he said one issue has repeatedly overshadowed many others: concerns about homelessness, addiction, open drug use and public safety.
Decker said residents in parts of Chinatown and Centretown have told him they no longer feel as safe as they once did, particularly when walking with children or encountering people using drugs in public.
He believes addressing those concerns will require more than simply moving services — and the people who depend on them — elsewhere.
“I don’t want to do what other communities have done by fixing this problem into another neighbourhood,” Decker said. “What’s needed is a citywide solution and working with the province on creating that solution.”
Part of Decker’s proposal involves expanding Ottawa’s Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment, or HART, Hubs and incorporating supervised consumption into the broader treatment model.
The Ontario government introduced the hubs as part of a major change in its approach to addiction services. In 2024, the province passed legislation prohibiting supervised consumption sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres. Nine provincially funded consumption sites were subsequently transitioned into HART Hubs.
That included the Consumption and Treatment Service operated by the Somerset West Community Health Centre on Eccles Street. Its supervised consumption program ended March 31, 2025, and the HART Hub began operating the following day.
The new model offers services including primary care, mental health and addictions treatment, system navigation and connections to supportive housing. The Somerset West centre has also continued peer outreach and distributes harm-reduction supplies in the community. But provincial funding for HART Hubs is conditional on them not providing supervised drug consumption.
Decker said he would like to see that restriction reconsidered.
“I would also like to see the current HART hubs that we have expanded to allow rare spaces that allow for what I call safe consumption in those HART hubs,” he said.
Decker said the approach should combine supervised consumption with treatment and recovery services instead of treating the two as mutually exclusive.
He acknowledged that accomplishing that would require cooperation from Queen’s Park. Ontario’s current policy not only prohibits supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of designated schools and child-care centres, but also requires municipalities to obtain provincial approval before supporting applications for new sites.
Decker also wants a stronger visible police presence downtown and firmly rejects calls to defund the Ottawa Police Service.
“We love the fact that there are police officers on horseback. There are police officers on foot. There are police officers on bikes,” he said. “We love the aspect that the police are present, and they’re visible, and that’s a deterrent.”
He said residents should be able to call the police when they encounter situations they do not feel equipped to handle on their own.
“That’s not fair to the residents who have worked hard and kept their own properties clean,” Decker said. “They want to have a life in Centertown and in Somerset Ward, that’s not fair to them.”
The candidate said public safety is closely connected to another of his priorities: revitalizing downtown.
Decker argues Ottawa does not always look or feel like the downtown of a G7 capital once visitors move beyond the parliamentary precinct. Bank, Elgin and other major streets need more attention to cleanliness, businesses and the public realm, he said.
“We don’t look like the capital city of a G7 country,” Decker said.
Bank Street, in particular, needs a more coordinated approach involving the city, businesses and the local BIA, he said.
“There’s no cohesive effort between all the parties involved to come up with something substantial that everybody can agree on,” Decker said.
Transit would also play a role in that revitalization. Decker said he wants to give OC Transpo’s latest service changes time to play out before judging whether they are working, while exploring ways to make Bank Street a stronger transit corridor that connects residents to the LRT.
Ultimately, Decker said he does not expect the challenges facing Somerset Ward to disappear during a single council term.
“I know the turnaround is not a four-year term, it’s not a four-year basis. It’s not a one-year term,” he said. “It may be a two-year term, but we have to start the turnaround on it.”