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2. Engage the community in fire safety and
crime prevention programs.
POLICIES
1. Continue to support community policing in
strategic locations, including the downtown.
2. Support neighbourhood engagement in
developing community-based solutions with
the RCMP, including: Neighbourhood watch,
Block Watch, and Citizens on Patrol.
3. Collaborate with the RCMP and the
development industry in promoting Crime
Prevention through Environmental Design
principles (CPTED) in new development
designs, focusing on locations vulnerable to
property crime.
4. Maintain the City’s Emergency Response Plan
and educate the public on preparation for
emergencies through community partnerships
and neighbourhood programs.
HOUSING
Challenges inhousing precipitate a host of social issues
that directly affect the overall health of a community.
These include homelessness, abject poverty, and
physical and mental health issues. While providing
adequate and affordable housing is not a panacea
to all social ills, it is always a good starting point and
municipalities across the country have embraced
it. In BC, the Local Government Act Section 877 (s)
makes it a mandatory part of the Official Community
Plan.
Affordable housing is often equated to subsidized/ so-
cial housing, which constitutes only a small percent-
age of the general housing stock. Affordable hous-
ing, in a policy context, has to include market housing
(ownership and rental) and those living in them that
experience affordability and inadequacy issues.
In the cost continuum (personal finances) housing
options range from homelessness to market housing
of various price levels. Affordability is often set at
30% of gross household income (shelter cost-to-
income ratio). This measurement excludes housing
adequacy and suitability, which account for much of
the core housing needs of most cities.
On the supportive scale, housing starts from
institutional care to supportive housing and
independent living. A comprehensive housing
policy should therefore address at least three areas:
needs based on population size and demographic
characteristics, affordability, and suitability. Solutions
lie in the production and delivery of new housing units
that match the diverse needs, in allowing homes to
be priced at an affordable level, and in ensuring an
income level that supports adequate shelter costs.
Solutions to housing issues have to engage all levels of
government and all community stakeholders in order
to address the root causes and become effective.
The City’s Affordable Housing Strategy indicated that
in 2006 a notable percentage of households were pay-
ing more than 50% of their income on housing. It also
identified a significant proportion of renters spending
more than 30% of their income on housing. These
core housing concerns have prompted the City, BC
Housing, Fraser Health and a number of community
groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
to action, resulting in a new 33-unit supportive hous-
ing project for youth and adults, The Village, near the
downtown, and the Chilliwack Health and Housing
Contact Centre (22 units and health services for the
homeless and those at risk of homelessness). A NGO
project, Ruth and Naomi’s Mission, was also opened
in 2012 to provide a drop-in centre and transitional
supportive housing for the homeless. While celebrat-
ing these successes, the realities of social housing
needs exceed the capacity of the city and community
organizations to provide a satisfactory solution.
In the future, efforts to increase subsidized units in
Chilliwack will continue. This is critical as there are
always households that require public assistance,
such as seniors and single parent families with limited
income and workers subsisting on minimum wages.
At the same time, the City will give high priority to
working with the development industry in creating /
Goal 5 - Build Healthy Attractive Communities