City of Powell River councillors have received the findings of consultants hired as part of grant received by three local levels of government to look at issues such as health and housing.
At the August 16 committee of the whole meeting, city manager of planning services Daniella Fergusson said the strengthening community services grant came from Union of British Columbia Municipalities. She said the city is administering the grant, which is valued at $772,199, on behalf of a partnership with Tla’amin Nation and qathet Regional District.
The money has gone toward funding for temporary shelter spaces for Lift Community Services and Tla’amin, services through Powell River and District United Way, transit tickets and taxi vouchers for unhoused people and temporary full-time staff at the city, plus community engagement funding. Also provided was training in trauma-informed practice, crisis intervention and Indigenous cultural safety.
As part of the analytical process, the city hired Rockandel and Associates to facilitate conversations in the community. According to a staff report, the consultants were hired to host a series of community dialogues to provide an opportunity for people to share thoughts and concerns about health and housing.
Fergusson said a snapshot of findings from people who participated in the engagement opportunities represent a broad cross-section of the community, including people who are unhoused, people who are at risk of losing their housing, people who own businesses and people who own houses.
“There were lots of generated ideas about how individuals can take action, which is really inspiring to see,” added Fergusson. “There’s that sense that we can all pitch in and help address some really complex issues related to health and housing.”
Fergusson said what staff would find helpful is some city council assistance in priority setting for issues that should be addressed first. She said, for example, that co-op housing came up in the community workshops, which would address a lot of community needs. She said there is also a lot of fear around renting to people, so there could be the establishment of a tenant matching program, with someone in-between who deals with conflict and/or risk, and helps connect people.
City councillor George Doubt said he was glad the committee was seeing the report, and that he went to one of the roundtable discussions and found it interesting.
“It’s important to focus on what council is really doing with this today; the motion we are going to talk about is receiving the report,” said Doubt. “I’m concerned that people might look at the document in front of us that says ‘next steps’ and has a bunch of really complicated and in-depth commitments to some complicated things, and say council has decided to do those things. I don’t think, in receiving the report, we’ve decided to do any of it.
“If council is going to make directions to staff on things like facilitating development on co-op housing, that would come after a strategic priority setting program for the new council, some serious discussions about the cost, and who you could partner with. There are some great ideas, but they are not ideas where we could say thumbs up, let’s go ahead, folks. It’s going to take some considerable thinking before we get into it.”
The committee gave unanimous consent to the Rockandel and Associates community dialogues report for information.
