Agenda Index City of Vancouver

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

TO:

Vancouver City Council

FROM:

City Manager and Chief Constable, in consultation with General Manager of Community Services

SUBJECT:

National Crime Prevention Program Funding Application - "Building a Future Together - The Downtown Eastside Revitalization Program"

 

RECOMMENDATION

PURPOSE

This report outlines for Council the proposed action plan to begin to address the many issues facing the Downtown Eastside, and requests that Council endorse the related application to the National Crime Prevention Program for funding under the Safer Cities Initiative, Crime Prevention Investment Fund.

BACKGROUND

In July, the General Manager of Community Services submitted a report to Council titled "A Program of Strategic Actions for the Downtown Eastside" as part of a six report submission on the Downtown Eastside. That report recommended "THAT the City Manager and the Chief Constable bring forward for Council's approval an application for funding to the recently announced Federal community safety initiative for the Downtown Eastside". The reports were referred for public consultation. In discussion with Council and the Mayor, staff undertook to prepare the application for Council review.

The application and support document - "Building a Future Together - The Downtown Eastside Community Revitalization Program", are in response to that directive. The application builds directly on the Strategic Actions advanced in previous reports to Council, emphasizing a coordinated response to issues in the area, drawing on the expertise of all levels of government and the local and broader communities.

The Vancouver Police Board reviewed a summary of the proposal on September 18, and agreed that the City and Police Department should move ahead with the funding application.

DISCUSSION

The funding under the National Crime Prevention Program, Safer Cities Initiative is intended for pilot programs in urban centres that address major issues and can be replicated elsewhere. The issues facing the Downtown Eastside are among the most serious in the country, and certainly fall within the criteria for consideration. The Downtown Eastside Community Revitalization Program is an action plan to restore the Downtown Eastside to a viable, safe community. There are no quick fixes. The community, private sector, and governments need to commit together to a long term program of community development and specific actions to solve problems in the area.

Building a Future Together is envisaged as a five-year program and the funding requested will be for $6.25 million over the duration of the program. We are fortunate in that Vancouver has a supportive community, willing to work alongside staff in addressing difficult issues. The City and Vancouver's Coalition for Crime Prevention and Drug Treatment are co-applicants for the funding, and members of the Coalition will be involved in many of the projects throughout the program as advisors and potential "pipelines" to community resources..

At the core of The Downtown Eastside Community Revitalization Program is a process of crime prevention through community development. Much activity by many people and organizations is being directed toward developing a safe community in the Downtown Eastside. Rather than duplicating any of the work already underway, the program will coordinate, organize and build on that work, with a goal of recreating a viable community through targeted short- and long-term actions, developed and managed through the community development process.

As the companion report from the General Manager of Community Services of community response to the City's report "A Program of Strategic Actions for the Downtown Eastside" indicates, there are disagreements on objectives for the area. Even where there is agreement on broad objectives, there is disagreement on how those objectives should be achieved. The Downtown Eastside Community Revitalization Program process will involve an intensive community development process, using facilitation and mediation resources to achieve initial agreement on less controversial objectives. It will focus work on several identified activity streams, including Crime Prevention/Community Policing, Alcohol and Drug Initiatives, Justice Systems Initiatives, Economic Development Initiatives, Youth/Education Initiatives, First Nations Initiatives and Womens' Initiatives. As progress is made and greater confidence in the process is achieved, more difficult issues can be addressed.

Projects in the various activity streams have several things in common: they involve the community in seeking innovative solutions, they are based on research and benchmarking, they will have measurable outcomes; and they will all focus on the long-term success of the program. The work is critically important to the City and the Downtown Eastside. From the perspective of the federal government, the program model is easily transferrable to other cities or towns and can be adapted to suit a variety of problems.

During the first year the grant will fund a management and support network for community development, work on targeted activities with immediate payoff, and work toward a five-year municipal-provincial-federal Urban Development Agreement. The report provides more detailed information on the proposed project, including a project organization, budget breakdown, and information on each activity stream.

The Downtown Eastside Community Revitalization Program is an ambitious program. Not every action outlined in the attached report will be successful. Some potential actions may not even be pursued after preliminary investigation; priorities and action plans can only be established jointly by the three levels of government and the community. However, staff believe that the direction of the report is correct. There must be an intensive community development process, with a major facilitation and mediation component. Specific short-term actions with a visible payoff must be addressed, to make progress and generate confidence in the community. And, longer-term issues and solutions need to be developed through the community development process. Long-term strategies will be put in place through the creation of an Urban Development Agreement involving all three levels of government.

If Council endorses this report and the program is funded, the City Manager, Chief Constable and General Manager of Community Services will report back to Council before the end of 1998 with a more detailed implementation plan for the program. However, to ensure rapid progress in the event the funding application is approved, it is recommended that the City Manager, in consultation with the other managers, be authorized to begin recruitment procedures for key staff and prepare proposal calls for consultant services, all to be subject to approval of the application.

CONCLUSION

Conditions in the Downtown Eastside are already poor and deteriorating rapidly. What we are doing now is not working. Action must be taken by all levels of government to reverse the downward trend. The funding from the National Crime Prevention Program will provide the support for a process that will lead to real change for the Downtown Eastside and the City. The goal of a safe and viable community must and will be achieved.

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