COMMUNITY HEALTH & SAFETY

2022 Green Community Health & Safety Platform - PDF

The Challenge

Vancouver is struggling to address the impacts of multiple crises. The pandemic, poisoned drugs, affordability, extreme weather and climate change, social isolation, and a tsunami of untreated mental health issues on our streets have left many feeling anxious, unsafe, and isolated, and too many of us are experiencing harm.

The Vancouver Greens believe that community health and safety is grounded in principles of equity, justice, and sustainability, backstopped by housing, healthcare and community supports. We will improve community wellbeing, through city planning and services that are responsive to the needs of diverse communities, while working with senior governments to partner and intervene on some of the biggest challenges in a generation.

Top Priorities

New investment and approaches to frontline mental health interventions with partners so police are not the first and only responders for mental health calls. Continue Green initiatives of crisis intervention and de-escalation programs, and mobile mental health units as first responders as part of the new 9-1-1 services that will roll out in March.
People-first streets, by investing in accessible sidewalks, curb cuts, pedestrian bulges and calming vehicular traffic, expand the Green-initiated 30 km/hr slower safer streets program, and hasten work to eliminate traffic-related fatalities.
Extreme weather response for everyone who needs it. Ensure every neighbourhood has climate-safe public buildings as places to retreat to during extreme weather events.
Reconciliation with the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations on whose traditional unceded lands Vancouver is located.
Adequacy of safe consumption sites to meet client and community needs and treatment on demand including appropriate size, provision of inhalation spaces, agreements with operators for sanitation and minimization of community impacts and treatment programs available when people are ready.
Funding Fire and Rescue Services to meet our growing needs. Increase necessary funding to Vancouver Fire Rescue Services as identified in the Darkhorse strategic growth report, and reassess needs to meet growth-related and new challenges such as dense high-rises and the poisoned drug crisis.
Policies and strategies that centre equity for marginalized and racialized Vancouverites including women, IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour), people who identify as LGBTQ2SAI+, and people who struggle with poverty, different abilities, homelessness, mental health or substance use disorder, and ensuring their needs are met.

Solutions

SAFE COMMUNITIES

HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

EQUITABLE COMMUNITIES

INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES

SUPPORT FOR VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES

ADVOCACY

WORK DONE BY GREENS

SAFE COMMUNITIES

Vancouver should be a safe city for everyone. Greens will champion:

Design of public spaces to create inclusive and safer communities. As part of the Vancouver Plan work and consultation, develop more inclusive and safe public spaces in each neighbourhood, using urban design guidelines for streetscapes that promote safety, social engagement, and accessibility.
Vibrant and lively streets, where everyone feels safe and welcome by investing in illumination, placemaking for all ages and abilities, and community-led event programming. Greens will activate unleased city-owned commercial spaces for cultural, recreational, and arts purposes and, in appropriate industrial and commercial areas, support and promote indoor-outdoor areas. Continue Green-led work to create sanctioned graffiti areas, eliminate nuisance tags on private property, and track and identify prolific taggers for restorative community service.
Funding Fire and Rescue Services to meet our growing needs. Increase necessary funding to Vancouver Fire Rescue Services as identified in the Darkhorse strategic growth report, to meet growth-related and new challenges like dense high-rise buildings and the poisoned drug crisis. Reassess needs for Fire and Rescue Services in the context of the new Broadway Plan. Ensure high-density neighbourhood fire halls have minimum standards for ladder trucks and staffing. Co-locate fire halls with other essential services like housing, city services, or provincial ambulance services where new or renewed fire halls are needed .
New investment and approaches to frontline mental health interventions in partnership with the province and health authority so that police are not necessarily the first and only responders for mental health calls. Continue Green-initiated work to create new public programs for crisis intervention and de-escalation, including mobile mental health units as first responders and as part of next generation 9-1-1 services that will roll out in March.
Restorative justice and community-led safety with the goal of healthy people, safe streets, strong communities, in a connected city that is invested in the humanity of all its citizens. Promote indigenous and peer led opportunities for outreach, safe walk programs, and harm reduction. Develop restorative justice alternatives to otherwise ineffectual criminal justice approaches for repeat and chronic offenders.
Create community-driven services and programs asset and risk inventories to meet the health and safety needs of diverse communities and direct resources to self-identified community needs (e.g., additional street patrols in Chinatown). Identify at-risk community and cultural assets, including food assets, and support their retention.
Adequate services to meet the needs of residents in supportive housing. Ensure there are adequate wrap-around services and staffing in Supportive Housing Units by making tenanting, staffing and operational agreements a condition of occupancy permits.

HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

The social determinants of health are non-medical factors that affect people’s health outcomes. These can include policies and programs that foster healthy activities, food security, social services, early childhood development, employment, and belonging. Greens will champion healthy policies for people and communities:

Reinvigorating the Healthy City Strategy, which has not been updated since 2018. Ensure that there is equitable access to services and amenities city-wide, for residents of all incomes and backgrounds.
People-first streets, to support healthy active transportation. Improve street designs by investing in accessible sidewalks with curb cuts and pedestrian bulges and calming vehicular traffic. Expand the 2019 Green-initiated 30 km/hr slower safer streets program throughout the city and hasten work to eliminate traffic-related fatalities.
Extreme weather response for everyone who needs it. Ensure that every neighbourhood has climate-safe public buildings as places to retreat to during extreme weather events.
Coordinated community responses to health crises. Prioritize and plan for a community care model to address intersecting health determinants like housing, education, transit, and primary care, working with health authority and relevant community-based agencies and advocates, service providers and others.
Measures to reduce impacts of the poisoned drug crisis. Maintain current practice of decriminalization, increase advocacy to the federal government for safe supply. Support overdose prevention sites and measures to mitigate and manage community impacts.

EQUITABLE COMMUNITIES

Our city has a history of racism, prejudice and injustice – in occupying and assuming ownership of indigenous peoples’ lands, in zoning and other policies that discriminated against Asian people and people of colour, in refusing to allow entry to people from India, in shipping people of Japanese heritage out of the city during wartime, in disproportionate policing of indigenous people and people of colour, in failing to protect sex-trade workers, in marginalizing people who are poor, homeless, mentally ill or addicted. Green Councillors commit to:

Meaningful Reconciliation with the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations on whose traditional unceded lands Vancouver is located, including advancing recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
Policies and strategies that centre equity for marginalized and racialized Vancouverites including women, IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour), people who identify as LGBTQ2SAI+, and people who struggle with poverty, different abilities, homelessness, mental health or substance use disorder, and ensuring their needs are met.
Implementing the actions and approaches called for in the City of Vancouver’s 2022 Equity Framework.
Continue and advance work on co-created apologies and meaningful reconciliation with Chinese, Japanese, South Asian and Black communities.

INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES

Everyone deserves to feel a sense of belonging, part of a community, and the safety and security that comes with having a strong support network. Greens will:

Create community-driven services and programs to meet the health and safety needs of diverse communities and direct resources to self-identified community needs (e.g., safety and security in Chinatown). Identify at-risk community and cultural assets, including food assets, and support their retention.
Combat loneliness and social isolation by supporting environments, built forms, and programs that foster community and transgenerational engagement, outreach, and opportunities, including child care at facilities for seniors.
Welcome refugees and asylum seekers and commit Vancouver as a Sanctuary City. Provide city and partnership services for newcomers that meet their needs and are accessible without fear.
Champion age-friendly policies and designs that consider all stages of life, and ability to age in community.
Champion accessibility policies and designs that consider people’s abilities, dignity and mobility.

SUPPORT FOR VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES

Vancouverites know we need more supportive services and housing in our city. Unfortunately many of those in need have been housed in spaces and places absent the support and services they require. Greens will work for:

Adequate services to meet the needs of residents in supportive housing. Ensure there are adequate wrap-around services and staffing in Supportive Housing Units by making tenanting, staffing and operational agreements a condition of occupancy permits.
Re-establish the Neighbourhood Integrated Services Teams framework and increase critical funding and support for non-police mental health crisis and overdose response teams, non-profit agencies, front-line workers and city staff, including Fire and Rescue Services, Police, Library, and Community Centre staff.
Comprehensive safety assessments in all residential hotel (SRO/A) buildings, use the City’s authority to perform repairs and seek compensation from SRO/A owners and operators where life safety issues are identified and not remedied. Advocate to the Province to phase out ageing and obsolete SRA/SROs stock and replace with safe and adequate low-income housing.
Adequacy of safe consumption sites to meet client and community needs including appropriate size, provision of inhalation spaces, and agreements with operators for sanitation and minimization of community impacts.
A Navigation Centre to coordinate resources for unsheltered people. The city can support and encourage the province to move forward with this promised intervention by providing land and expediting building approval.

ADVOCACY

SHORT INTRO: 1-2 Sentences

Vancouver Agreement 2.0 - initiate discussions with senior governments to establish an agreement among three levels of government, health authority, and First Nations to work together to support local community solutions to economic, social, health and safety issues.
Implement some of the Recommendations from the Transforming Policing and Community Safety in British Columbia Report. Particularly:
- Implement a new Community Safety and Policing Act to govern the provision of policing and public safety services based on values of decolonization, anti-racism, community, and accountability.
- Create and appropriately fund a continuum of response to mental health, addictions and other complex social issues with a focus on prevention and community-led responses and ensuring appropriate first response.
- Enhance and standardize initial and ongoing police education and training to reflect key values and competencies in order to shift police culture.
Adequately fund protective services to meet safety needs in our city and the needs of first responders, including adequate mental health support and services.
Safe supply: Drug addiction as a health issue, working with senior governments to ensure the safe legalized supply of uncontaminated drugs, provide low-threshold opioid replacement therapies, timely detox treatment, long-term support services, and harm reduction measures complemented by treatment and prevention options outside of the Downtown Eastside, and including safe drug testing.
More supportive, recovery-based housing across the city and treatment options on demand, so people can get help when they are ready.
Urge Province to phase out ageing and obsolete SRA/SROs stock and replace with safe and adequate low-income housing.
Poverty reduction: Working with senior governments to tackle root causes of poverty including funding for supportive housing and increasing welfare and social assistance rates.
Access to transit, work with TransLink to plan and increase local public transit service in the evenings and throughout the weekends. Lobby to change the Indian Act so that there can be public transit to First Nations’ reserves.

WORK DONE BY GREENS

In 2018, Vancouver elected three Greens to Council who worked collaboratively across party lines to deliver the community health and safety services people need in their communities. Greens have worked hard this term to change our City’s policies to be more equitable and better meet the needs of residents. Unfortunately, too much of our important work has been slow to come back from staff to Council or has not been implemented at all. We need more Greens elected to ensure our solutions are implemented in a timely fashion and in a way that best serves the people of Vancouver.