Vancouver community leader, advocate & politician
Source: CBC News
Vancouver city council approved in principle a homelessness strategy in which the city would donate a dozen parcels of land worth $50 million for the development of 1,500 low-cost apartments.
The report, co-authored by Ken Dobell, a top aide to Premier Gordon Campbell and a former city manager, calls on the province to spend $48 million a year to build and maintain the small housing units for low-income singles.
Mayor Sam Sullivan today applauded provincial budget investments in social housing that will play a key role in helping Vancouver meet the Project Civil City target of reducing homelessness by more than 50% by 2010.
“This is the largest investment in social housing in recent history,” said Mayor Sullivan. “Clearly, the concerns I raised in Victoria related to homelessness and affordable housing have been heard and acted upon.”
In an editorial in the February 13th National Post newspaper, Mayor Sam Sullivan is calling on municipalities as well as senior levels of government to open the debate on increasing urban density as a way to address global climate change.
“Instead of telling Canadians to simply check the air pressure in their tires to ensure better mileage, or put energy efficient light bulbs in their suburban homes, we should also be talking about how better urban planning and densification of our cities can significantly reduce our impact on the environment,” Mayor Sullivan writes.
Source: The Globe and Mail
Byline: Mark Hume
The federal government has closed a funding gap that threatened to shut down non-profit aboriginal groups providing 15,000 shelter beds and feeding 2,000 families annually in British Columbia.
“The government has agreed to a six-month extension of existing projects, which was very nice,” Patrick Stewart, chairman of the Aboriginal Homelessness Steering Committee, said yesterday.
“And what that means is it will give us six months of continued existing services while we work out the new terms and conditions and do proposal calls [for a new two-year contract].
“So it looks like we’ll get the seamless transition we were looking for.”
National Post
February 13, 2007
As mayor of one of Canada’s biggest cities, Vancouver, I am frustrated with the nature of the debate on global climate change in this country.
Over the past several months, I have watched as environmental organizations, government agencies and the media provide advice on how Canadians can make small changes to our lifestyles, yet continue living in a fundamentally unsustainable fashion.
Instead of telling Canadians to simply check the air pressure in their tires to ensure better mileage, or put energy efficient light bulbs in their suburban homes, we should be talking about how better urban planning and densification of our cities can significantly reduce our impact on the environment.
The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) is endorsing in principle Mayor Sam Sullivan’s concept of a Substitution Treatment research project to help deal with some of Vancouver’s street crime issues.
“We’ve seen decreases in street crime, open drug use and aggressive panhandling downtown thanks to enhanced police beat patrols,” says DVBIA president Bill Rempel. “But the police can’t be everywhere all the time. We need to find long-term solutions that address the root causes of these issues. That’s why we applaud Mayor Sullivan’s goals to reduce these problems and his willingness to try innovative solutions to make it happen.”
Source: National Post, Page A08, Feb 3, 2007
Byline: Allison Hanes
Cutting industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, scientists and environmentalists insist, is the single most important way to curb the extreme weather, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and other doomsday predictions surrounding climate change.
However, energy-conscious building codes, good urban planning, tough vehicle-emissions standards and well-insulated homes are all essential policy changes that need to take place internationally, nationally and locally to slow the pace of global warming.
Byline: Sean Condon
Source: The WestEnder
Feb 01 2007
Sharon Message was finally able to break her debilitating, years-long crack cocaine habit in the 1990s. Unfortunately, she did so by substituting it with crystal meth. While she was happy to have kicked the former, the 45-year-old mother was now addicted to the latter, a harmful psychostimulant drug.