People often wonder what Chilliwack is doing about housing and homelessness.
Those will be among the burning questions answered Oct. 28 in the virtual session, ‘Housing and Homelessness: Chilliwack Collaborations’ presented by Chilliwack Healthier Community (CHC) partners in the annual information and networking event.
First up on the 2021 schedule of speakers at 10:40 a.m. is Ruth and Naomi’s Mission clinical director Dr. John Gray, followed by Cyrus Centre director Trevor Wiens.
City of Chilliwack’s manager of long-range planning Karen Stanton will present on the Reaching Home Homeless Prevention Program, and then Graham McMahon of Chilliwack Housing Hub will offer an update.
The program closes out with a bang, at noon with the Chilliwack Community Integration Initiative from PCRS’s Jodi Higgs, and Sgt. Krista Vrolyk of Chilliwack RCMP.
It runs 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 28, and the 15-minute presentations can be watched live by those who register and receive the Zoom link.
The CHC presentations went virtual at the outset of the pandemic in 2020 and have continued to deliver the key info updates by teleconference, but the first three years these sessions were in-person events.
Pressure to address rising homelessness in Chilliwack came to a head three years after the homeless count of 2014 in which 73 people self-identified as homeless. The number of unhoused skyrocketed to 221 people in 2017, and then jumped to 306 in 2020. The backdrop for exploding numbers of people in the streets was the rapid rise of real estate values, reno-victions and an extremely low vacancy rate for Chilliwack’s rental housing stock.
Reports on previous sessions below:
RELATED: 2018: What is Chilliwack doing about housing and homelessness?
RELATED: 2019: What is Chilliwack doing about housing and homelessness?
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email:
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