Fostering community resilience and health

Fostering community resilience and health

Everyone deserves to have safe access to the supports they need during the most difficult times of their life. Streets and transportation should be safe and accessible for all, including the most vulnerable users. Burnaby can help ensure there is safety and care for all community members.

1. Create a non-police mental health intervention and crisis response with a Community Safety department, centred on well-being with health and peer support workers, allowing police to focus on solving crimes
   • Through intentional trained de-escalation and recognizing the humanity of each person, these teams will provide needed assistance (physical, medical, mental, etc), and connect to supports as needed
   • Assist building community hubs and resiliency networks throughout the city – local spaces, easily accessible in every neighbourhood, welcoming for all to spend time together, share in life and find supports
   • Work with marginalized communities to build trust and ensure culturally sensitive supports are accessible for everyone in challenging situations
   • Significant engagement with people affected by crisis response and in different communities for co-creation and design of the program including people impacted by mental health crisis response, harm reduction service providers, and organizations engaged in outreach and advocacy around homelessness
2. Provide a full spectrum of housing and supports (shelter, supportive housing, local rehab and detox facilities, etc) within Burnaby in partnership with Fraser Health
   • Ensures access to necessary support and services for people in Burnaby
   • Increases the feeling of safety for everyone over time by reducing the amount of visible poverty and homelessness as well as improving safety of people directly facing challenges by providing the shelter and supports needed for a healthy life
3. Strongly advocate for completing the full Burnaby Hospital expansion to ensure much needed services are available for Burnaby residents
   • Work with the province and local health care providers to have more accessible health care services for preventative care in all neighbourhoods
     • This will help to also reduce the burden on Burnaby hospital by preventing unnecessary hospitalizations and helping Burnaby residents maintain a healthy life
4. Implement a cooling bylaw that ensures existing buildings can maintain a safe temperature during increasingly frequent heat waves by having at least one area that can be kept at a safe cooling temperature during extreme heat
5. Expand availability of accessible, maintained, 24/7 washrooms in Burnaby
   • Utilize existing city facilities and parks to ensure access to washrooms throughout the city
   • Work with Translink to provide washrooms at every bus exchange and most SkyTrain stations