BIKE OR WALK to work or school; Know your neighbours; Turn off your TV; LOOK up when you are walking; Greet people; Use your library; Play together; Buy from LOCAL merchants; Share what you have; HELP a lost dog; Take children to the park; PUT up a swing; SUPPORT neighbourhood schools; WAVE to the crossing guard; Wave to everyone for that matter; FIX it even if you didn't break it; Have pot lucks; HONOUR elders; Pick up litter; READ stories outloud; DANCE in the street; START a tradition; Hire young people for odd jobs; ASK a question; ACT on a good idea; Listen to the birds; Bake extra and SHARE; SHARE your skills; Take back the night; Sing together; Turn down the MUSIC; TURN UP THE MUSIC; Mediate a conflict; GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP; Wake up refreshed and ready to do it all over again. Know that no one is SILENT although many are not HEARD.
Wednesday 12 October 2011
Sunday 9 October 2011
Let's end homelessness in Squamish
This is a community call to action.
Squamish needs a Squamish specific, community-based plan to end chronic Homelessness. Not a strategy to manage or cope with homelessness issues in Squamish, but to end it. It needs to be a bold and innovative plan that delivers in a set period of time.
I've been a volunteer at Helping Hands Homeless shelter for more than 5+ years, pretty much since it opened. I've been on the board for most of that time and served as its president for a year and a half. And although the Society, its amazing staff and volunteers, has done an outstanding job in finding homes and providing basic needs to hundreds of citizens, a decisive plan to end homelessness is really the only next step. Other cities have started this type of proactive initiative. Now is the time for Squamish to get it done.
I've been a volunteer at Helping Hands Homeless shelter for more than 5+ years, pretty much since it opened. I've been on the board for most of that time and served as its president for a year and a half. And although the Society, its amazing staff and volunteers, has done an outstanding job in finding homes and providing basic needs to hundreds of citizens, a decisive plan to end homelessness is really the only next step. Other cities have started this type of proactive initiative. Now is the time for Squamish to get it done.
Here's what I'd like to see: a series of public consultations, a community poverty summit, research and dialogue with front line workers, service providers [alcohol, drug and mental health], and homeless people in Squamish, Lower Mainland and beyond that culminate in a proactive 5-year strategy to end homelessness in Squamish.
The plan will contain practical solutions that cut through the underlying systemic societal barriers. It will aim to stop the cycle of jail, street, shelter, street, hospital, shelter, street, shelter, street, shelter...this system costs government far more than the expense of actually housing people. We need to end homelessness first and address an individual's personal issues once they are housed. The plan should help people move to self-sufficiency and independence while ensuring that they receive the care and support they need to be successful. It will involve a coordinated outreach effort by a number of agencies that includes intensive case management. Housing solutions must be self-determined by the individual as the foundation of a rehabilitation philosophy because it makes the person an active participant in their own rehabilitation. And this plan will be a net cost savings to taxpayers.
As is the case in Alberta and Ontario [the 2 provinces that seem to be leading the way] lasting success will require major policy changes by all levels of government as well as long-term investments to deliver full results. We have to realize homelessness costs government far more than actually providing homes.
It will require efforts of all levels of government, the private sector, the non-profit and faith communities and the public working together toward this end.
Municipal government can't be saddled with the financial costs of this plan. This is where Federal and Provincial governments must step up. But we must show leadership is in finding solutions and facilitating the action plan.
Other cities have had significant success with this type of housing first approach. Between 2009-11, Toronto's Streets's to homes Program has seen a 51% reduction in shelter use and 80% reduction in recidivism. The Denver Housing First Collaborative provided housing through a Housing First approach to more than 200 chronically homeless individuals. A 2006 cost study documented a significant reduction in the use and cost of emergency services by program participants as well as increased health status. Emergency room visits and costs were reduced by an average of 34.3 percent. Hospital inpatient costs were reduced by 66 percent. Detox visits were reduced by 82 percent. Incarceration days and costs were reduced by 76 percent. 77 percent of those entering the program continued to be housed in the program after two years.
Alberta was the first provincial government to legislate that all municipalities have a 10-year housing and homelessness plan. Ontario has since followed that lead. I'd love to see BC mandate this as well. What provincial governments are discovering is that this approach saves money in healthcare and the criminal justice system so it's worth their time and effort.
Local service groups have been discussing these issues for several years. It's time to coalesce this energy into an achievable plan. Because ending homelessness in Squamish is achievable.
Love to hear your thoughts.
Other cities have had significant success with this type of housing first approach. Between 2009-11, Toronto's Streets's to homes Program has seen a 51% reduction in shelter use and 80% reduction in recidivism. The Denver Housing First Collaborative provided housing through a Housing First approach to more than 200 chronically homeless individuals. A 2006 cost study documented a significant reduction in the use and cost of emergency services by program participants as well as increased health status. Emergency room visits and costs were reduced by an average of 34.3 percent. Hospital inpatient costs were reduced by 66 percent. Detox visits were reduced by 82 percent. Incarceration days and costs were reduced by 76 percent. 77 percent of those entering the program continued to be housed in the program after two years.
Alberta was the first provincial government to legislate that all municipalities have a 10-year housing and homelessness plan. Ontario has since followed that lead. I'd love to see BC mandate this as well. What provincial governments are discovering is that this approach saves money in healthcare and the criminal justice system so it's worth their time and effort.
Local service groups have been discussing these issues for several years. It's time to coalesce this energy into an achievable plan. Because ending homelessness in Squamish is achievable.
Love to hear your thoughts.
Cheers
Patty
Let's break the transit mold
Public transit is a conundrum. Particularly in smaller city such as ours.
That's not to say we can't make it work, it just means the answers are not obvious or easy. It's time to get creative and re-imagine our transit service.
I was reading an interesting article on transit in smaller cities. In it, the writer contends that to achieve better transit systems for smaller cities you've got to have a fareless system.
To provide some background, in 2011, DOS transit expenses were just under $950,000 for our internal transit system [not including Squamish-Whistler commuter...that's another topic altogether] The projected revenue in 2011 is $187,600. To give you some contextual information, Transit expenses in 2010 were $827,335, revenue $180,131, and in 2009 expenses were $768,195, revenue $153,639. Note: There was an increase of service in 2009.
This article first poses the question: Why have fares in the first place? We don't pay to check out books at the library. We don't have turnstiles to visit a neighbourhood park. We don't pay when the fire truck comes to our house to douse a fire. Most non-utility municipal services are provided for free to users and funded by taxes. So why is transit different? The article suposes that it's rooted in the origins of the transit system when they were run by for-profit companies. They are publicly funded and run today so perhaps this practice should be abandoned.
That's not to say we can't make it work, it just means the answers are not obvious or easy. It's time to get creative and re-imagine our transit service.
I was reading an interesting article on transit in smaller cities. In it, the writer contends that to achieve better transit systems for smaller cities you've got to have a fareless system.
To provide some background, in 2011, DOS transit expenses were just under $950,000 for our internal transit system [not including Squamish-Whistler commuter...that's another topic altogether] The projected revenue in 2011 is $187,600. To give you some contextual information, Transit expenses in 2010 were $827,335, revenue $180,131, and in 2009 expenses were $768,195, revenue $153,639. Note: There was an increase of service in 2009.
This article first poses the question: Why have fares in the first place? We don't pay to check out books at the library. We don't have turnstiles to visit a neighbourhood park. We don't pay when the fire truck comes to our house to douse a fire. Most non-utility municipal services are provided for free to users and funded by taxes. So why is transit different? The article suposes that it's rooted in the origins of the transit system when they were run by for-profit companies. They are publicly funded and run today so perhaps this practice should be abandoned.
As you can see from the numbers above, transit revenues do not come close to covering the costs. Even large cities do not come close to covering their operational costs. We'd have to increase ridership almost 6 fold to cover expenses in Squamish. Raising the fares simply does not work. The amount of riders lost due to fare increases counteracts the potential revenue in many cases.
One key to a successful transit program is to figure out how to convince the discretionary rider to take the bus. Perhaps there is a benefit to going fareless.
Transit in smaller cities like Squamish have a completely different purpose than transit in larger cities who can generate considerable offsetting revenue and who need to find solutions to over-crowding and traffic congestion.
One key to a successful transit program is to figure out how to convince the discretionary rider to take the bus. Perhaps there is a benefit to going fareless.
[5 points From shareable.net with some editorialization by me in italics]
1. Reduced capital expenses. No fares = no fare collection equipment. You don’t need to kit out buses with fareboxes, rail stations with turnstiles or ticketing equipment, etc. I'm not sure what this cost is for our buses.
2. Reduced operating expenses. Collecting fares means you need an entire cash management apparatus. Handling money requires care, proper processes, accounting, security, etc. Get rid of all that and you are saving money. Plus, you don’t have to worry about enforcement. Even on POP systems you’ve got the labor of people auditing tickets. Why bother? And you don’t need to pay repair technicians to service this equipment because it will never break down because it doesn’t exist. That also means no spare parts, which can mean less storage requirements, etc. And with less personnel you probably need a smaller office. The list of savings goes on and on. Again, actual numbers on this would be interesting to know.
3. Improved operations. How long does it take for everybody to board at a bus stop as one person after another swipes a pass or fumbles for change? No fare collection means boarding is quicker. You can even board through every door, not just the front. This means less time spent idling, lower fuel consumption, and faster journey times (a big point in getting people into transit). This might be negligible considering the goal is to significantly increase ridership but it would be an interesting analysis.
4. Better ROI. You are building a transit system so that people will ride it. Fares discourage ridership, especially off peak, non-commute trips. That ain’t good. A transit system is a more or less fixed cost network like an airline. Every seat that goes empty goes to waste. We’re paying to run the buses or trains whether or not anyone is on them. The marginal cost of an additional passenger, up until the point where capacity is maxed, is very low. So why not make sure those seats don’t expire worthless?
5. Marketing. It’s a lot easier to sell something that costs nothing. And any city that did this would get major kudos. And possibly grants etc because of it...PR bonus! You can't buy that kind of advertising.
It's interesting food for thought. I wonder if we create a free bus service and we tripled the ridership, might we be able to generate the lost ticket revenue in advertising alone on the buses? Perhaps we can spend our own carbon offsets on a local fareless transit program. Afterall, by 2012 all BC municipalities will have to be carbon neutral in respect to their operation, and if we're not, we have to buy offsets. Why not spend those offsets augmenting our own transit system.
HMMM, this idea of a fareless bus transit system may be worth exploring.
But it doesn't solve the problem of aiming to increase times and service into the evening and on Sundays. A marriage of our local school bus services and our transit system might be able to accomplish that.
The bottom line is we need some creative thinking, political courage and a desire to lead.
Love to hear your thoughts on this crazy idea.
Cheers
Patty
PS. I'm trying to keep these short but I got a little carried away with this one.
Patty
PS. I'm trying to keep these short but I got a little carried away with this one.
Saturday 8 October 2011
Squamish Farmer's Market Coupon Program
I spent a couple of hours at the Squamish Farmer's Market today manning a booth for Squamish Helping Hands Society. The Farmers Market has been a great community partner and supporter of Helping Hands' food rescue and redistribution program, and the Drop in centre and shelter. Today was about talking to people at the market to bring awareness to the community about the issues of food access, poverty and homelessness. We signed up a few new volunteers for Helping Hands, accepted donations and as always, many of the vendors donated some of their produce to Helping Hands for the shelter and food program.
Another great program at the Market is The Squamish Farmers Market Coupon Program. Click on the video link below and you'll see Carolyn morris describe this program. It's the last week of the market so a lot of coupons were redeemed today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZNmyzH29SM
This program not only gets healthy foods into lower income families' homes but also supports our local BC food producers and the Farmer's market. Thousands of coupon dollars were spent today at the market. Squamish Savings/VanCity, another incredible community partner, sponsored the program to the tune of $15,000.
Don't forget the winter market at the Roundhouse at the Railway Park starts Nov. 20.
Another great program at the Market is The Squamish Farmers Market Coupon Program. Click on the video link below and you'll see Carolyn morris describe this program. It's the last week of the market so a lot of coupons were redeemed today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZNmyzH29SM
This program not only gets healthy foods into lower income families' homes but also supports our local BC food producers and the Farmer's market. Thousands of coupon dollars were spent today at the market. Squamish Savings/VanCity, another incredible community partner, sponsored the program to the tune of $15,000.
Don't forget the winter market at the Roundhouse at the Railway Park starts Nov. 20.
The power of collective wisdom
There was a great example of collective wisdom given at the Impact99 Conference a few days ago at Quest. It talked about the fact that 100 million collective hours has created wikipedia. And the speaker speculated on what we could accomplish with 100 billions hours of accumulated and shared wisdom...perhaps a cure to cancer?
Another great example of this is the recent announcement that gamers had solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade.
After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in Foldit players, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.
This made me reflect on the interesting online dialogue that is happening around the municipal election in Squamish. The debate and discussion is awesome, and is hopefully the start of something ongoing, because this type of participation should happen continuously. Not just at election time.
Here's to changing that in the future.
Another great example of this is the recent announcement that gamers had solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade.
After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in Foldit players, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.
This made me reflect on the interesting online dialogue that is happening around the municipal election in Squamish. The debate and discussion is awesome, and is hopefully the start of something ongoing, because this type of participation should happen continuously. Not just at election time.
Here's to changing that in the future.
Ideas and Inspiration for a vital economy in Squamish
I posted these on Facebook's Squamish Speaks in response to a comment by Kerry Brown.
An interesting case in point. Look at Mississauga Ontario. For years it focused on attracting talent and for years it was a bedroom community of Toronto. Once a critical mass and diversity of talent lived there the businesses started to migrate there. Today it's a force to be reckoned with. By the nature of our geography and proximity to Vancouver and Whistler, we've attracted a very talented, skilled and creative work force. The key now is to show this off to the world.
Nate Dolha added excellent followup to this point: While Mississauga has enjoyed enormous success as a centre of commerce and innovation, there was much more to it than just having talent move to the community. They ensured there was alignment between their long term strategic plan, downtown plan, transit plan, etc. They targeted specific industries, lowered barriers to entry, and built partnerships with both industry and educational institutions. The attraction of talent was just one facet of their overall strategy. http://www.mississauga.ca/
Another great example of visionary, incremental and opportunistic economic development is Stratford Ontario. This was a town struggling to find itself in the 1950s. A local journalist wanted to revitalize Stratford's economy which was facing the devastating loss of its primary employer [Rail-mainly due to the imminent elimination of steam power] by creating a theatre festival simply because it was called Startford. I'm sure people thought he was nuts. Today...and I may not get these stats perfectly correct but they are close...Stratford sells $38 million worth of tickets between April and October every year. And every visitor, and they had more than 300,000+ people at the festival this year, spends $288 on average=$86million is infused into the local economy during just 6 months of summer. That festival was initiated in the 1950s. Food for thought.
I look forward to other people sharing their thoughts on this possibility.
An interesting case in point. Look at Mississauga Ontario. For years it focused on attracting talent and for years it was a bedroom community of Toronto. Once a critical mass and diversity of talent lived there the businesses started to migrate there. Today it's a force to be reckoned with. By the nature of our geography and proximity to Vancouver and Whistler, we've attracted a very talented, skilled and creative work force. The key now is to show this off to the world.
Nate Dolha added excellent followup to this point: While Mississauga has enjoyed enormous success as a centre of commerce and innovation, there was much more to it than just having talent move to the community. They ensured there was alignment between their long term strategic plan, downtown plan, transit plan, etc. They targeted specific industries, lowered barriers to entry, and built partnerships with both industry and educational institutions. The attraction of talent was just one facet of their overall strategy. http://www.mississauga.ca/
Another great example of visionary, incremental and opportunistic economic development is Stratford Ontario. This was a town struggling to find itself in the 1950s. A local journalist wanted to revitalize Stratford's economy which was facing the devastating loss of its primary employer [Rail-mainly due to the imminent elimination of steam power] by creating a theatre festival simply because it was called Startford. I'm sure people thought he was nuts. Today...and I may not get these stats perfectly correct but they are close...Stratford sells $38 million worth of tickets between April and October every year. And every visitor, and they had more than 300,000+ people at the festival this year, spends $288 on average=$86million is infused into the local economy during just 6 months of summer. That festival was initiated in the 1950s. Food for thought.
I look forward to other people sharing their thoughts on this possibility.
The little worker ant that could...then got fired.
A friend sent me this so I made it into a little movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9w7utnYa-E
Hmmmm. Can you relate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9w7utnYa-E
Hmmmm. Can you relate?
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