Guest speaker Kelly Foley discussed the many issues around affordable housing at the Nov. 17 Elphinstone Community Association (ECA) meeting. Foley is on the S.C. Housing Action Alliance Steering Committee and spoke of the urgent need for solutions in an unaffordable housing market. She noted the long waiting lists for apartment rentals and supportive housing and says that housing insecurity represents all demographics. This affects everyone, even the securely housed, because business and vital infrastructure all become short-staffed when people cannot afford to live here. The Housing Action Alliance is working with three government levels and housing providers on solutions. Fortunately, there are housing projects being developed like the Kiwanis Seniors Centre, Greenecourt, the shíshálh nation House of Clans and S.C. Community Services Building Together project. Kelly urges people to support these initiatives in whatever way they can. In fact, the ECA recently voted to make a donation to the Community Services Society Building Together project. Others can too by following the link for the project at: sccss.ca.
When Tamara Hedden reported on Cedar Grove Parent Advisory Council’s Secret Santa fundraiser, the ECA voted to make a $200 donation towards this good cause of providing Christmas cheer to families who could benefit.
We were driving to Sechelt on the Monday of the major floods but after sloshing through a lot of water running over the highway and encountering a spot where we thought there could be a complete road collapse, turned around. Here on the Coast, we were lucky to not have been as hard-hit by the atmospheric river as so many other parts of B.C. With all the advance notice of this catastrophic event, surely this was the time to activate B.C.’s emergency alert system! We probably shouldn’t have been out driving either but didn’t realize how bad it was at that point and stopped to check out Chaster House on our way home. For the second time in as many months, the usual minimal flows through Chaster Creek had turned into a roaring torrent up an over the foot bridge, flooding the entire lawn.
On behalf of the ECA, Hermann Ziltener wrote a letter thanking Mayor Beamish and the Gibsons town council for supporting its request to protect Reed Road Forest (DL1313). On Nov. 16, the town sent a letter to the Minister of Forests, Lands, etc. (why does the name have to be so long?) urging the ministry to have the forest removed from the BCTS timber supply. Hermann recently spoke to the town council outlining the many reasons for preserving the forest, not least of which is that like all intact forests, soil is held in place and water retained for slow release.
For lots of useful community information, including some amazing photos, read Area E Director Donna McMahon’s November newsletter online at her website: everythingelphinstone.ca.
With my final column of the year coming up, it’s time to remember long-term Elphinstonians who have passed away during the past year. Please let me know of people I should mention in my In Memorium column by emailing me at: [email protected].
