Healthy City Strategy success stories

Our recent accomplishments

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   Goal: Making ends meet

  Our target: Reduce the city’s poverty rate by 75% and increase the median income by at least 3% every year

  Certified as a living wage employer by the Living Wage for Families Campaign

  The City, Park Board, and Vancouver Police Department have taken steps to reduce inequity by becoming living wage employers. Adopting a living wage policy demonstrates the City's commitment to support healthy, thriving communities, and help individuals and families make ends meet.

  As a certified living wage employer, we are committed to paying direct employees and contracted services employees a living wage.

  The living wage rate is calculated annually by the Living Wage for Families Campaign (LWFC)  and is based on regional cost of living.

  Vancouver is the largest City in Canada to commit to a living wage.

  Learn more about this initiative 

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  The Women's Summer Fair and Flee Market ensures vocational and income generating opportunities for women residents in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

  The Downtown Eastside Women's Centre's Women's Summer Fair and Flee Market was an opportunity for women in the community to engage in street based economies within a safe, respectful environment.

   

  

  This project ensured vocational and income generating opportunities for women residents in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, as well as being a model for re-distributing and repurposing goods and materials that would be otherwise destines for the landfill.

  As part of the project, the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre worked to engage other Women's organizations including, Battered Women's Support Services, Atira, and WISH in providing specific training for women. Pacific Association of First Nations Women provided connection to facilitators to assist in teaching vendors crafting skills to make items to sell at the market. The UBC Medicine Collective partnered with The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre to provide a series of workshops to vendors including Indigenous traditional salve making, tea harvesting and making, traditional oil making. These items were sold at the market.

  The Women’s Summer Fair and Flee Market included over 130 participants, 43 of whom were vendors, and 90 women were either employed by the market, volunteered or took part skills development and employment training. Nearly 5000 hours of training were held with peer workers, vendors, volunteers, and skills-development participants.

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  New economic strategy for the Downtown Eastside aims to harness employment opportunities and reduce poverty

  City staff and the Exchange Inner City Committee, which is made up of 35 community groups, businesses, and other local stakeholders, have created a strategy that seeks to improve the lives of low income residents.

   

  

  The strategy aims to strengthen and support areas of activity such as 501 Powell Street, purchased by us in 2015. The site now provides a permanent space for the Downtown Eastside Street Market and will provide future social housing.

  Council approved funding of $353,500 for 13 key initiatives and 22 actions that will lay a foundation for longer-term development and continued expansion of the strategy.

  Learn more about the projects

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  Goal: Being and feeling safe and included

  Our targets: Increase residents’ sense of belonging and safety by 10%, and make Vancouver the safest major city in Canada

  Indigenous awareness and training  

  In March 2016, our Corporate Management Team completed a half-day Indigenous Awareness workshop at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. 

  Since 2015 just over 700 Vancouver Police Department staff and 600 City of Vancouver staff have taken part in Indigenous awareness training, as part of our efforts towards reconciliation.

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  Taking steps to better serve people living with dementia 

  We partnered with the Alzheimer’s Society of BC to develop training that will help City staff better serve people living with dementia.

  The Vancouver Fire Department has also committed to developing the training in an online e-learn format in 2017. As part of this process we have created a video with the Alzheimer’s Society of BC called “Jim’s Story,” which illustrates the experience of a person who lives with dementia. 

  Learn about our Age-Friendly Action Plan

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  Awareness training for sex work and sexual exploitation

  We have worked in partnership with Living in Community since 2012 to deliver training designed to build individual and organizational capacity to best respond to the health and safety needs of sex workers in Vancouver. 

  This training has been provided to front-line and managerial staff from:

  • The Vancouver Public Library
  • Parks and Recreation
  • Property Use Inspections
  • Non-market Housing

  The commitment to ongoing training helps to counter the stigma that increases the marginalization of sex workers and develop non-discriminatory and effective responses.

  

  The training’s principles of inclusion, equity, and respect have laid the foundation of many of our initiatives, including the West End Sex Workers Memorial, a commemorative lamp post installed to honour the lives of sex workers who were adversely affected by municipal actions in the mid-1980s. We also publically acknowledged responsibility for the displacement of the West End sex workers that led to severe conditions of vulnerability, stigma, and harm.

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   Goal: Cultivating connections

  Our targets: All Vancouverites have four people in their network that they can rely on, and increase municipal voter turnout to at least 60%

  Catalyzing a social movement around connection and belonging

  In December 2016, we partnered with Vancouver Coastal Health and Metro Vancouver to host “Connect,” an action-oriented forum looking at social connections and belonging in the region.

  

  The forum brought together approximately 200 systems-builder (including local government, non-profit organizations, community groups, and funders) to share tangible tools, initiatives, research, and best practices to increase collective impact and enable greater positive change.

  Workshops included:

  • Boosting social connections in multi-family housing
  • Creating neighbourhood empowerment networks to enhance community resilience
  • Accelerating inclusion of hard-to-reach populations
  • The role of art and culture in creating more engaged and connected communities
  • How to measure social connection

  The event included an explicit focus on building a network of practitioners, and on initiating next steps and follow-up actions.

  Thanks to Vancouver Coastal Health, United Way of the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Foundation, and posAbilities for supporting this event.

  Learn more about our goal: cultivating connections

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   Goal: Feeding ourselves well

  Our target: Increase citywide and neighbourhood food assets by a minimum of 50% by 2020

  International award for food strategy 

  Our Food Strategy won the 2016 Milan Food Policy Pact Award for "Governance or ensuring an enabling environment for effective action”. The international awards were created to stimulate the exchange of practices and learning between signatory cities worldwide.

  

  The Vancouver Food Strategy was launched in 2013 and is a plan to create a just and sustainable food system for the city. It builds on years of food systems initiatives and grassroots community development, considering all aspects of the food system, from seed to table to compost heap and back again. 

  One part of the strategy is providing food support for vulnerable elementary school children in the Vancouver School Board, to give all children a good start. Another initiative recognized by the Milan Pact was urban farming.

  In March 2016, we changed bylaws and adopted a set of guidelines that assist in the development of safe, neighbourly, and productive urban farms. Increasing opportunity for food production for urban residents has positive social, economic, and environmental impacts and creates opportunities for neighbourhood focused farms.

  There are now approximately 18 urban farming businesses and organizations operating on roughly 50-60 sites around the city, all reducing the “distance to fork.”

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  The City meets its food asset target

  In 2017, we met our food asset target! Some of these assets include over 600 new community garden plots since 2013 and a doubling in the number of community food markets offered.

  

  In 2017, we also committed to revising and broadening the food assets definition to include other types of assets such as those that are culturally- or economically-important. Including these diverse assets in our definition will better allow us to preserve them and to incorporate them into planning processes and new developments.

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  Goal: Getting around

  Our target: Make over 50% of trips by foot, bicycle, and public transit

  Through many partner and our initiatives we has had great achievements since the program launched over a year ago. 

  Vancouver hosts international conference on active transportation

  In September 2016, as part of our Active Transportation Promotion and Enabling Plan, Vancouver hosted the international Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference.

  

  The conference:

  • Showcased Vancouver’s active transportation projects and policies to 1,000 active transportation and placemaking professionals from across North America and around the world.
  • Launched Vancouver’s first annual walking and cycling report card which highlights Vancouver’s improving active transportation mode share, recent infrastructure improvements, and the city’s changing attitudes toward walking and cycling

  In 2015:

  • 27% of trips in the city were made by walking
  • 16% by transit
  • 7% by bicycle
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   Goal: Environments to thrive in

  Our target: Add a biodiversity target and a target related to toxins prevention to the Greenest City Action Plan, and increase neighbourhood walk scores

  Vancouverites have the right to a healthy environment and equitable access to livable environments in which they can thrive. 

  New forms of block parties bring laneway and apartment communities together 

  In 2016 there were 159 block parties hosted in Vancouver, and the number of applications has steadily increased since 2011. 

  

  The first ever West End apartment block party connected residents and neighbours from two apartment buildings.The organizer said

  “I received positive feedback during the event and not only from the two apartment buildings but other people who live in the west end that happened to be cycling or walking by. They too joined in for food and listened to music. The only complaint I received was asking why they hadn’t been invited!”

  This pilot helped lay the foundation for supporting other apartment buildings to host their own block party and determine what is needed to receive a permit.

  Block parties are bringing life to laneways too. Residents of a block along East Broadway livened up the laneway behind their properties with live music, lots of food, and plenty of play spaces for the local children and adults to connect. 

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  Goal: Expressing ourselves

  Our goal: Vancouver has a diverse and thriving cultural ecology that enriches the lives of residents and visitors

  Mural Festival showcases public street art

  The August Vancouver Mural Festival was a landmark celebration of public art, creating over 56 new street murals in Mount Pleasant, Strathcona, and False Creek Flats. 

  

  The free inaugural event provided opportunities for many local and emerging artists and also included live music and community projects. Planning is now underway for a 2017 event.

  In 2016 our Cultural Services department distributed $12 million in grants to more than 300 arts and cultural groups, including the first 20 Creative Spark grants to emerging artists through the ArtsStarts group.

  Renowned Vancouver mural artist Ola Volo said:

  “Having a mural festival in Vancouver really highlights the importance of street art, and why it’s important to put artwork on the walls and make the city look like it belongs to us.”  

  Organizer David Vertesi from the band Hey Ocean said:

  “[we’re] trying to transform the way people connect with the city, with the space. I think in Vancouver we've always connected, traditionally, with the nature here, with the mountains, the water, the forests. But we're trying to push a connection with our urban spaces as well."

  The Public Art Registry lets you find public artworks in Vancouver neighbourhoods and promotes cultural tourism and local pride by showcasing artists and artworks in Vancouver.

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  Goal: Collaborative leadership

  Our target: 90% of “actions for all” to be developed in phase 2 will be implemented

  Leaders from the public, private, and civil sectors in Vancouver work in integrated and collaborative ways towards the vision of a healthy Vancouver for all. 

  Vancouver Immigration Partnership (VIP) launches its New Start Strategy for Immigrants and Refugees

  The New Start Strategy for Immigrants and Refugees  in Vancouver aims to improve the newcomer experience.

  From immigrant service agencies such as MOSAIC, SUCCESS, and Immigrant Services Society of BC, to employer groups such as the Overwaitea Food Group and Telus, from Business Improvement Associations to universities and colleges, from the Vancouver School Board to the Vancouver Public Library, VIP’s project partners all brought unique perspectives from diverse community sectors in addressing the needs of immigrants. 

  28 priority actions are focused in four areas:

  1. Enhancing access to services
  2. Strengthening intercultural and civic engagement
  3. Building welcoming and inclusive workplaces and government
  4. Public institutions addressing needs

  Over the coming years VIP members will continue to work together to implement the priority actions outlined in the Strategy.