2024 brings optimism, innovation & record cold snap
The New Year brought with it numerous engagements with groups and individuals across the city, and opportunities to support and advance the work they do to make Vancouver a better city.
After returning from a short stay in Ontario to see family members, a historic cold snap would soon arrive that would lead to days-long deep freeze where temperatures plummeted as low as minus 13 degrees. As an avid weather watcher, I spotted the forecast about a week before the arrival of a chilling polar vortex. On January 6th, I emailed staff to ask for an update on the City’s plans to communicate with the public well in advance of the deep freeze, and about our extreme weather response plans. A record number of shelter spaces were established in time for the arrival of the cold weather.
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I was pleased to co-chair a joint committee of City of Vancouver and Vancouver School District representatives with Trustee Victoria Jung early in the month. There are numerous ways that the City and VSB can work more collaboratively to improve education outcomes as well as benefit neighbourhoods all over our city through this planning and facilities committee. It’s great that we have this mechanism to address issues together and I’m honoured to be a part of it.
It was a great pleasure to meet for the first time the people who run the Together We Can recovery organization based in East Vancouver. The opioid addiction crisis is among the most profound challenges of our time, and it is the work of groups like TWC that are helping hundreds of individuals to overcome their battle with addiction and restore relationships with family and friends.
Councillor Lisa Dominato and I were delighted to visit the factory of b.collective, a company that manufactures prefabricated homes in Vancouver. Their “BOSS” initiative (Building Offsite Sustainable Systems) seeks to expand construction techniques that will ultimately reduce the cost and carbon impacts of home construction. The company is starting small by focusing on duplexes, with the goal of expanding to multiplex homes and ultimately larger buildings. Prefabricated wood construction is a huge opportunity for B.C. based companies and I’m pleased that our city is a home to this kind of innovation.
On the cool, clear evening of January 15th, Vancouver city councillors met for its first Tsleil-Waututh Nation council-to-council meeting. It was gratifying to hear from Chief Jennifer Thomas and her council members how positive the relations have been between City of Vancouver officials and her Nation. Our council is strongly committed to supporting the shared priorities of local First Nations and the City.
Other highlights of the month included serving meals to community members at SAVE-ON-MEATS, the iconic storefront located on Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside. I was joined by Councillors Dominato, Bligh and Trustee Jung in a beautiful group effort to plate and serve three-course meals to dozens in attendance. Proceeds from this charitable event go to A Better Life Foundation to continue serving healthy meals to people in the community.
It was a joy to also attend some of the early Lunar New Year celebrations, including at the Tzu-Chi Foundation in Marpole, and the Vietnamese Lunar New Year event held at Croatian Cultural Centre.
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