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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSafe & Healthy - 2009-03-03SAFE AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES MARCH 3, 2009 CITY OF KITCHENER The Safe and Healthy Community Advisory Committee met this date, commencing at 4:05 p.m. Present: Ms. K. Kwiatkowski, Chair Ms. S. Franzen, Ms. M. Hogg, Ms T. Beaulne, Ms. L. Booth, Ms. B. Pegg, Ms. C. You, Messrs. D. Bellamy, T. Gardner, D. Pellerin, P. Doherty, Superintendent B. Larkin. Staff: L. Palubeski, Manager of Program and Resource Services R. Delaney, Committee Administrator 1. PRESENTATIONS RE TERMS OF REFERENCE REVIEW As a result of the approved recommendations from the Advisory Committee Review, each Advisory Committee has been tasked with conducting a review of their current Terms of Reference. In order to provide context concerning the Committee's purpose and scope, the following presentations were made and various materials circulated to Committee members. Access & Equity Ms. Lori Palubeski provided an overview on access to and equity across program and service areas with the City. She stated that the work began 4 years ago in response to the workforce not being reflective of the community. A backgrounder was developed describing why a comprehensive diversity strategy for the City of Kitchener is needed. This document entitled "Mini Kitchener" reduced the City's population to a community of 100 people and profiled this diverse group of people. It was intended to help us to understand our community through numbers that are easier to identify than statistics. From this exercise we reviewed and analyzed our access, equity and inclusion inventory, developed a vision and clear purpose for the strategy and revised the corporate commitment for diversity. Four goals were adopted for this strategy: • Have a workforce that broadly reflects the community; • Identify and address barriers within organizational systems, become proactive instead of responsive; and, • Attract and retain a talented workforce skilled a working in an inclusive and respectful manner with one another and with the community, and further; • Create processes, policies, plans, practices, programs and services that meet the diverse needs of those we serve. Ms. Palubeski noted that now that the external work has been completed, it is now time to move onto the internal work of encouraging the access and equity perspective into the day to day work of City staff. A tool currently being used in the City of Edmonton is a comprehensive strategy based on best practices and could be easily adapted to this municipal setting. It encourages a broad use of lenses by staff to incorporate the access and equity perspective into their work as employees, supervisors, project managers, program and service deliverers etc. and identifies roles and responsibilities of staff at all levels. She stated that the Access & Equity team is developing a workplace series of benchmarks which hopefully will be implemented by the end of this year and that Ms. Shelley Adams, Director, Community and Corporate Planning will be commenting further on access to and equity across program and service at the April meeting. Poverty Reduction Ms. T. Beaulne provided an overview on efforts to reduce poverty in Kitchener and circulated various materials relating to poverty reduction including a "Kitchener Table Talk Discussion - Downtown Kitchener" and "Poverty Reduction in Kitchener" by the Social and Economic Inclusion/Poverty Reduction Working Group. She advised that Kitchener has the highest population of all local municipalities in Waterloo and has a disproportionate amount of families and individuals living in low income. Due to the groundswell of concern across the Province on poverty, the Province of Ontario created a Poverty Reduction Strategy called "Breaking the Cycle" with one of the objectives being a target to reduce the number of children living in poverty by 25 percent over 5 years. She further stated that in November 2007, the Social & Economic Inclusion Working Group recommended the focus for their work is poverty reduction strategies in Kitchener and proposed to deliver the following: SAFE AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES MARCH 3, 2009 - 10 - CITY OF KITCHENER • A plan for Kitchener that builds on work already underway through various initiatives, coalitions and programs; • A community profile and poverty tracking plan for Kitchener to determine the extent of poverty and its related issues, that included a demographic profile and stakeholder input to better understand the issues; and, • A request that Council support a Province wide reduction campaign and advocate these recommendations be adopted by all levels of government. Ms. Beaulne stated that in October 2008, Council approved support for the 25 in 5 poverty reduction campaign which is a 1St step toward 50 in 10 years and to ultimately reduce poverty completely in 20 years. Mr. D. Bellamy assumed the Chair at this time to allow Ms. K. Kwiatkowski to present on local housing issues. Housing Ms. K. Kwiatkowski presented an historical overview on local housing issues to date and circulated material from the "Waterloo Region in the 21St Century - A Community Acton Plan for Housing" which is a publication of the Region of Waterloo. She advised that affordable housing is an important issue affecting all segments of our population. Seniors, new Canadians, couples with children, the working poor, those on social assistance, students and other segments of our community all contain households that experience difficulties in finding appropriate and affordable housing. Recent research suggests that the affordability gap for the lower income households is growing. Many incentives have been offered over the years from different levels of government and each level of government has a different perspective of how they believe they should or should not participate in the housing issue. To date, there is no National Housing Strategy in Canada which could set national outcomes and standards, provide flexibility, and partner with municipalities to establish local housing strategies to deliver these outcomes. During the later 90's the Federal and Provincial governments decided to "get out of the housing business" and devolve its social housing responsibilities. The Ontario government announced that funding and administration of social housing would be de-evolved to 47 Service Managers making them responsible for social housing. In an exchange of "Who Does What" education costs were uploaded to the Province while local municipalities took on social housing amongst other things. The Provincial Social Housing Reform Act, December 2001 formally passed on the responsibility of Ontario's 84,000 public housing units to local municipalities and the Region of Waterloo ended up with 8,000 units. The Act also instructs service managers how to operate and what they can spend but there is no contingency to upgrade these homes, so there are many challenges for the municipalities on how to spend this money wisely and keep the existing housing stock in good repair plus keep up with the expenses of ongoing Legislative requirements for fire, elevators and safety equipment. Ms. Kwiatkowski informed the Committee of a publication from the Region of Waterloo titled "Community Action Plan for Housing in the 21St Century". It is a comprehensive plan of the Region's vision for well-designed, safe, healthy and diversified housing and communities. The Region has a current waiting list of 3200 household for community housing. Kitchener chose to build on the many infill lots which gave close proximity to shopping, libraries etc., but times have since changed. There is a viewpoint that allocations should not all be centralized in certain areas, but be spread out geographically across the City and since 2003 Kitchener has not built any new buildings in the downtown. Between the period of 2001 - 2008 the Region built more than 1,500 units. The new goal of building at least 500 new units between 2009 to 2013 has been approved by Regional Council, however the targeting population will be lower income households earning less than $20,000. Currently there is a 3,780 unit shortfall for affordable units in the Region, with nearly 40% of all renting households paying over 30% of their gross income for housing with 20% paying more than 50% of their gross income toward housing. The Region has just re-released the Home Ownership Program. There are requirements to this program including a $68,000. maximum household income, no debt load or monies owing SAFE AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES MARCH 3, 2009 - 11 - CITY OF KITCHENER to any social service landlord, and have to be a legal resident of Canada. The Region will contribute 5% of the purchase price. In closing, Ms. Kwiatkowski stated that within Kitchener Housing there are more people coming forward to change their rent due to economic difficulty and more people are having social issues. The challenge for Kitchener Housing is to create as much housing as possible, to maintain the existing housing stock but also have money available to support the growing physical and emotional needs of their vulnerable clients. 2. HELMET SAFETY Mr. Pat Doherty gave a presentation on the issue of safety helmets and contact sports and shared recent local press articles relating to the serious head injuries occurring in contact sports namely hockey. He advised that the wearing of safety helmets has become a top priority for insurance companies, equipment manufacturers, regulators of the hockey game and governing bodies. He referred to an article written by Dr. Bishop, University of Waterloo and Chair of Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Equipment and Facilities for Ice Hockey, in which Dr. Bishop berates the National Hockey League (NHL) for fostering the removal of a helmet during a fight. Mr. Doherty noted that the NHL attitude has to be separated from amateur hockey associations and gave examples of where the changes have already started. He referred to an article from the Canadian Press where it is noted that a tough stance has already been taken by the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) who have set recommendations in place designed to punish players who remove their helmets during a fight. Mr. Doherty summarized that manufacturers of safety helmets are trying to come up with a helmet suitable for all sports and that insurance premiums could increase significantly by liability claims. He agreed to continue to update the Committee when further information becomes available. 3. UPDATE -DOWNTOWN ADVISORY COMMITTEE Mr. D. Pellerin presented an update on the Kitchener Market and its new strategy process to bring awareness and image to the Market. He announced that there is a new incentive underway including a re-naming contest, logo, new branding, retrofit and new flooring. A mission statement is being developed, which is awaiting Provincial input and staff are working on new ideas to draw in people including improving signage. Included will be a plan to assist merchants to improve their profitability by developing models on marketing ideas. A concern was raised as to why the City was spending money on "dressing-up" the market by painting the floor if shoppers are just not there, and that the money could be better spent for example on marketing the idea that market food is cheaper than store-bought. Mr. Pellerin responded that the new incentives underway are a total issue concept and that it is better to have a proper strategy in place rather than piecemeal ideas. Ms. Beaulne suggested that from a safe and healthy viewpoint, the market should promote the affordability of produce and the "100 mile diet" concept. She also raised the issue of the new courthouse which will border up against the market and questioned how the design of the new courthouse will fit into the flow and productivity of the Market and not undercut efforts. She mentioned that Grand River Transit is currently expanding service to Elmira and that the Kitchener Market could fill the needs of shoppers who used to shop at the Waterloo Market prior to its closing. Superintendent B. Larkin commented that he will be attending a meeting in April with the Attorney General's Office concerning the new courthouse. He noted that the architectural design of the courthouse is in its initial design phase and he will update the Committee further after his April meeting. The Committee expressed concern regarding the impact the design of the new courthouse could have on the market and members commented that input from the Downtown Advisory Committee (DAC) would be vital to further discussions on the subject. 4. NEW BUSINESS Ms. Palubeski circulated a booklet entitled "Money and Making It On Your Own" published by K-W Counselling Services, Catholic Family Counselling Centre noting that it is an excellent SAFE AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES MARCH 3, 2009 - 12 - CITY OF KITCHENER resource guide to financial independence for women who are coming out of abusive relationships. 5. ADJOURNMENT On motion, the meeting adjourned at 6:05 p.m. Rita Delaney Committee Administrator