WEEKLY UPDATE - APR 9

Welcome back to the Weekly Wrap Up! Our first meeting back from spring recess had three Committee meetings.

At Community and Public Services, we discussed the work the City does to address homelessness, addictions, and mental health. We learned about the resources the City spends on a range of services, as well as the contributions of the Provincial and Federal governments in these areas. The report confirmed the leading role the City is playing in building new affordable housing with over $168m invested, and highlighting the challenges in meeting community needs related to homelessness, addictions, and mental health that are beyond our mandate, jurisdiction, and financial capacity.

Committee asked City staff to return with more information about the implications of us redirecting the $43m currently being spent in these areas, and the approach that other municipalities are taking in the region.

I also advocated for City staff to create an itemized list of housing and health supports we need from the Province to meet the city’s needs - like day shelter and supervised consumption spaces. While we can’t provide these services directly, the City can document and advocate for them.

In a related conversation at Urban Planning, we talked about adding a cap on congregate sleeping spaces for emergency shelters. We want to ensure everyone can access shelter, and know that smaller scale shelters with more private space have better outcomes for users and surrounding communities. This best practice of smaller spaces has been reflected in the new shelters the Province has added in recent years. The City can support this positive trend by adding a limit to congregate space in our Zoning Bylaw. We were talking about this further at Council this week, more on that next week.

At Executive, we discussed two revised grant programs that can support businesses in our community. This includes a commercial development incentive and a vacancy reduction program. If approved at Council, funding for these grants will come to fall budget deliberations for considerations. Commercial development is key for a prosperous and vibrant city and I think these grants are a great opportunity to support business improvement areas. I’m also interested in exploring whether these grants can be leveraged to support existing businesses to stay in place as well. More to come!

That’s all for last week, hope you’re all enjoying the arrival of spring!