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Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • W E D N E S D AY, M AY 1 4 , 2 0 1 4
Chilliwack mom, kids bounced from bus
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Jennifer Feinberg The Progress It was her babies’ first bus ride, and it ended in tears. Chilliwack mom Sasha Selby said she complained to BC Transit after she was prevented from boarding a bus in downtown Chilliwack with her two toddlers and a double stroller in tow. Selby was “disgusted” by her treatment by a bus driver of a #1 bus on May 8. She took to social media “as a warning to other moms” after walking home partway in the pouring rain. The driver told BC Transit officials he offered Selby the option of collapsing the streamlined jogging stroller and getting on the bus. But that doesn’t jive with her version of the story “We got down there no problem and had a fantastic meal,” Selby recounted about the kids’ first bus trip downtown. “Then we waited for the bus. When it came the driver said, ‘Nope! Your double wide stroller is too wide, you can’t catch the bus.’” Selby said she was in tears from the frustration of being suddenly stranded. She wasn’t given any options or she would have complied. “I told him I lived in Sardis Park and at this point it is coming down in buckets out there. My kids are soaked.” She was humiliated so she backed the stroller off the bus. “I was feeling super uncomfortable.” The driver told her there were size restrictions for strollers on the bus, and he was already “six minutes” behind schedule, implying that she should hurry up and move along. Continued: MOM/ p13
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Crews began filming Monster Trucks, a Paramount Pictures production, in downtown Chilliwack yesterday. Tuesday’s shots featured a police chase going north on Young Road, west on Wellington Avenue, north on Mill Street, and west on Court Lane. Above is a view of Mill Street. The movie crew will be in town until Saturday, and then they return again May 26-28. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Homeless numbers ‘fairly flat’ across FV Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Homeless numbers are down significantly in Chilliwack compared to the last survey, according to preliminary totals from the 2014 FVRD Homeless Count released Tuesday. “What we know, after doing this now for the fourth time in a decade, is that since 2004 homelessness is not just a Metro Vancouver issue, it is indeed an issue here in our communities as well,” said Homeless Count research coordinator Ron Van Wyk, in a presentation to FVRD
Regional and Corporate Services Committee. Last time they conducted the survey in Chilliwack in 2011, there were 111 who self-identified as homeless, but that total dipped to 73 people in the 2014 Homeless Count. The homelessness count is a “snapshot” or moment-in-time survey, conducted at the same time as the Metro Vancouver count over a 24-hour period in March. The total of homeless people living in the FVRD has remained “fairly flat,” from 2011 to 2014, Van Wyk said, with the numbers notching up from 345 to 346.
It’s still well below the record high for the region of 465 homeless enumerated in 2008. Across the region, homelessness rose to some degree in Abbotsford, Mission and Boston Bar. When asked what would end their plight of being homeless, the answer most often given was “affordable housing.” From 2011 to 2014, Abbotsford went from a count of 117 homeless to 151, while Mission’s numbers went from 54 to 75 people. Hope went from 43 to 22, also marking a decrease in the homeless population.
Agassiz-Harrison remained the same with 20 people, and Boston Bar found five people homeless, which is up from zero in 2011. “Overall it is fairly stable, and so it’s plausible to argue the reason why it remains stable, I would think, is that there are organizations that do a lot of creative stuff.” Partnerships and MOUs established between local governments and BC Housing were given the nod, which have resulted in “several new facilities and services in the past six years,” Van Wyk said. Since 2008, local governments, Continued: SURVEY/ p6
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