The mayor and police chief have unveiled more details about their crime reduction strategy aimed at curbing a rash of homicides in Edmonton.

The city got a vague look at the plan earlier in the week with the police chief describing the strategy as a holistic approach to the problem, involving all three levels of government, community groups and academics.

But the police chief admits the long-term strategy could take years to implement.

"This is not a quick fix. There are no simple solutions. We are collectively committed to a marathon, not a sprint race," said Police Chief Rod Knecht.

The majority of the plan revolves around increasing resources for at-risk Edmontonians. The city is planning to hire additional social workers and recreation coordinators, as well as deploying more neighbourhood empowerment teams and expand the Public Safety Compliance Team, which monitors bars, and restaurants in the city.

One man who spent much of his teens living on the street, involved in drugs and alcohol, and eventually crime, has turned his life around with the help of an arts program downtown.

"It gets me out of trouble hanging out here everyday. Painting something, working on a rap, shooting some hoops, it helps a lot," said Jason Tait.

It's social support such as this that the city hopes will help to tackle crime in our city.

Police are taking aim at edged weapons, promising more dialogue with provincial and federal lawmakers to make better use of weapons legislation.

So far this year, Edmonton has seen 33 homicides.

The most recent homicide victim was sleeping on a downtown park bench when he was approached by man and fatally stabbed.

"It would be folly for us to ignore that 50 per cent of these homicides involve an edged weapon," said Knecht.

The police chief met with Crown prosecutors to come up with a joint strategy to get criminals off the street.

"Our investigators may need to do something a little different in order to gather the best evidence at the best time to enable a successful prosecution," said the police chief.

The chief also won't rule out changes to the Criminal Code. But that is something leadership candidate Doug Horner does not support.

"Weapon is a weapon instead of changing legislation, let's change why people use them."

Officers also plan to re-shuffle more resources to family violence programs and to target gang crimes.

According to the mayor, 60 per cent of those involved in this year's homicides at some point had been homeless. And by hiring more social workers, and increasing support for agencies, the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of people living on city streets.

"The vast majority of people leaving the streets want to leave the hood, they want to break away from their former associates but as a result they are lonely," said Jay Freeman, executive director of the Edmonton Homeless Commission.

But for those who call Edmonton's streets home, it's not as easy as providing a home to the homeless.

"Drugs it escalated to this and that's how I ended up on the streets and it's become a family and I don't want to leave it," said Angela White.

At the end of the day, the mayor says council is behind the strategy and they are not going to penny-pinch when it comes to the safety of the public. But Mayor Stephen Mandel says they will require help from the province.

"We also expect our provincial partners to also step," said Mandel.

But that could be a difficult task as the province deals with tight budgets. According to one Tory leadership hopeful, more money is no guarantee.

"We've first got to sit down and have a serious discussion about what would be the cause and once we identify it then money may be appropriate. But I get really frustrated every time we talk about a challenge the answer is to just throw money at it," said Doug Griffiths.

Our city's homicide rate so far is sitting higher than any other city in Canada.

With files from Scott Roberts and Serena Mah