qathet Regional District directors were presented an update on Lift Community Services’ activities at the November 27 committee of the whole meeting. Kim Markel, executive director of Lift, outlined what organization has been up to.
“It has been a busy spring, summer and fall for us,” said Markel. “Earlier this year we launched our three-year strategic plan, which was very exciting for our organization and our board. This has allowed us to focus in on five key areas, including our efforts around community engagement and education, fostering community resilience, shoring up some of our centralized administrative processes, focusing on how we empower and support our employee group, and also, I’m starting to tell our story in a more meaningful way so the community has a better sense of impacts.”
Markel said the proposed additional supportive housing facility conversation is alive and well in the community, and so Lift has been actively engaged with its partners around the initiative.
Markel said that November 27 was the 20th anniversary of Family Place, which is “very exciting.”
She added that recently, Lift expanded its welcome centre hours to operate five days a week, from 9 am to 4 pm, and the organization is excited to increase its service from four days a week.
Markel said Lift is doing some focused work in providing education to the community about programs. She said in November, Lift supported the film screening of Someone Lives Here, which is a Toronto documentary that highlights some of the complexities around addressing homelessness, particularly during the pandemic. She said that there had also been a community meeting with Carolina Ibarra from Pacifica Housing, speaking to the complexities around addressing the homelessness crisis that this community is experiencing, along with provincially and around the country.
“Our education efforts really came out of our evaluation of the feedback we have received while we were involved in community engagement,” said Markel. “Our management and leadership team knocked on more than 300 residential doors and visited almost 70 businesses, as well as conducting an online survey to discuss how we could position ourselves better in the community and how we could share information better.”
Markel said residents want and need education about some of the issues that are impacting the community, and Lift, as a provider of services, has an obligation to support information going out into the community.
She said the second theme was about demonstrating action, which speaks to the need for Lift to be more transparent and visible in the community about the programs it is running, and to elicit feedback and engagement from the community.
She said there are a lot of people in the community who want to be involved, but don’t know how to be involved.
“What do we do to empower our supporters?” asked Markel. “A recent example would be our cold weather clothing drive, where we got totes and totes of supplies for people who are without cold-weather clothing. How do we create opportunities for the heart of the community to shine through?”
Markel said Lift will also be participating in the community’s second homelessness count next year. She said the community’s first homelessness count was in early 2023, where 126 people were documented as being unhoused within our community.
As for the community resource centre shelter and overdose prevention site location, Lift is going to have to move its services prior to April 1 of 2025. Markel said continuation of these services is a priority of the organization, so there is a lot of work with City of Powell River staff and realtors and community partners to try and find a new space.
Markel said much of her attention is focused on trying to support securing new program locations and advocacy work will continue.
“There’s an ongoing commitment to continue community outreach and awareness building, and then supporting ongoing discussions around the proposed supportive housing development,” added Markel. “There’s a lot of information that the community is requesting so they can be comfortable with moving forward, or not moving forward, with the supportive housing program.”
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