LOOKING AHEAD TO 2013 SOCIAL JUSTICE - ALAN RYCROFT COMMUNITY RELATIONS HEAD, VICTORIA COOL AID SOCIETY
Continuing Education FREED OM TO SOAR
W i n t e r 2 013
Alan Rycroft, community relations head, Victoria Cool Aid Society.
Q. WHAT WILL BE THE GREATEST SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT OF 2013? predict that 2013 is going to be the turnaround year for ending homelessness in the capital region. For many years, one of Victorians’ top concerns has been helping house the people in our community without homes — 96 per cent of whom want to be housed (we surveyed them). Together, we have made some good progress: the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness tallied the numbers up recently and together we have built 209 modest apartments for people who have been homeless, since 2009. Now, coalition partners will seize an even more ambitious goal: their “Procurement Action Plan” calls for the construction of 719 new supportive housing apartments by 2018, plus 245 subsidized apartments in the existing rental market to help house folks who can’t afford Victoria’s expensive
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rents. It’s going to cost $109.9 million for the new construction. That sounds like a lot of money, so why do I feel confident that 2013 is the year that Victorians will decide to end homelessness? Simple. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we’ll all be saving taxpayer dollars. In fact, incredible as it may seem, a Simon Fraser University economic study determined that the average cost savings to taxpayers for housing people in B.C. who have been homeless is $18,000 per year, per person — mostly through tax savings in hospital, emergency shelter, security and justice system costs. By collectively raising $10 million to get the ball rolling, we will leverage an additional $100 million in capital and save something like $17 million per year. Now that’s a good return on investment. Better for the people who are homeless. Better for the community. Better for us taxpayers. Win, win, win.
ENVIRONMENT - KEN WU EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE AND MAJORITY FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
Q. WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE CAN WE PREPARE FOR IN 2013? he major environmental change for 2013 will be the resurgence of the climate sustainability movement. This movement is being fueled by Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, by expectations that Obama will act during his last term, by major opposition movements to pipelines and coal, and by the groundswell of climate activism underway in the U.S. through Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement that will inevitably overflow into Canada. Big Oil’s role in manufacturing public doubt about climate science — despite 98 per cent of the world’s publishing climate scientists agreeing that anthropogenic climate change is underway — is akin to Big Tabacco’s past in casting doubt on the link between cigarettes and lung cancer. The question now is if the climate movement will grow strong enough, and fast enough, to stop runaway global warming. Scientists are projecting a four-to-six-degree global temperature rise this century — at two degrees, the feedbacks of burning forests, icefree warming oceans, permafrost methane release, etcetera, make it virtually impossible to halt global
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warming, and it won’t stop at just six degrees. The climate movement will evolve into a force great enough to change the status quo, but it will require a heavier emphasis on politics and policies to change society, rather than simply voluntary personal lifestyle reforms. Emphasizing solutions will also be key, along with Ken Wu highlighting the positive attributes of a sustainable, low carbon society for green businesses and jobs, livable cities, healthier lifestyles and sustaining the planet’s natural diversity. As long as the environmental movement is simply the movement of “no” and “stop,” without emphasizing how people can make a living, it will always be too weak to fundamentally transform the status quo. And that status quo is the key to build a broad-based movement that engages the mainstream public — businesses, faith groups, unions, scientists and diverse communities — rather than simply other activists and “protesters.” In 2013, I think we’ll see hope come back.
Fo r CE co u r s e s g o t o c a m o s u n . c a /ce
MONDAY MAGAZINE JANUARY 3 - JANUARY 9, 2013 mondaymag.com
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