Social policy, health, and community services

141 commitments from 11 parties, grouped by who published them.

Green Party of Vancouver 30

Restore funding for Sex Worker Safety Coordinators and continue supporting sex worker safety measures, MMIWG2S+ Calls for Justice, and Red Women Rising recommendations.↗↗
Create a comprehensive municipal strategy and task force to prevent intimate partner violence, coordinating services, expanding survivor support, improving data and prevention education, and ensuring accountable leadership.↗↗
Complete means prevention infrastructure as part of the Granville Bridge upgrades.↗↗
Expand access to clean, safe, and accessible public washrooms through a coordinated citywide strategy identifying underserved areas, extending hours where needed, and integrating washrooms into plazas, community facilities, and major public spaces.↗↗
Expand low-barrier daytime spaces where people experiencing homelessness can access services, connect with housing supports, store belongings, and find respite.↗↗
Expand secure storage facilities and community lockers for people experiencing homelessness so personal belongings are protected while individuals access services, seek employment, and work toward permanent housing.↗↗
Deploy small-scale shelter villages with private locking micro-cabins, storage, sanitation, and on-site supports as a bridge to permanent housing, with clear pathways, case management, and housing placement goals for every resident.↗
Collaborate with the health authority and building use departments to create new conditions and opportunities for childcare in atypical locations and hours.↗↗
Support and grow food recovery organizations that rescue surplus food and redirect it to people in need.↗↗
Make it faster and easier to create childcare spaces in every community by allowing childcare wherever appropriate and streamlining approvals.↗↗
Reduce permit fees, streamline approvals, and remove unnecessary regulatory barriers for licensed childcare providers to lower the cost of opening and expanding childcare.↗↗
Lease or support suitable City-owned spaces at below-market rates to licensed childcare providers, and work with the Park Board to expand childcare in community centres across Vancouver.↗↗
Support equipment lending libraries giving residents affordable access to tools, sports equipment, recreational gear, gardening supplies, repair equipment, and other shared resources.↗
Expand support for community gardens, urban agriculture, farmers markets, and local food producers to increase access to healthy, affordable food, and reinstate and expand food planning roles cut under the previous administration.↗↗↗
Support community food hubs that integrate food distribution, meal programs, community kitchens, gardening, nutrition education, and local food services, especially in food desert areas.↗
Strengthen Vancouver's food system by supporting local production, processing, distribution, storage, and emergency food networks.↗
Create locations for community food gardens and food production in every neighbourhood.↗
Include in the Human Rights Action Plan a commitment to prevent displacement of unhoused and precariously-housed residents without safe, dignified alternatives.↗
Expand access to low-barrier spaces and essential services for unhoused and precariously-housed residents during the World Cup.↗
Establish real-time tracking and public reporting on shelter availability and service access during the World Cup.↗
Develop a policy framework and operating standards for overdose prevention and harm reduction services, using the City's zoning, permitting, and licensing tools.↗
Direct city staff to develop a scalable framework for small, rapid-deployment shelter sites, prioritising standardised and prefabricated units, shared facilities to reduce costs, and identification of underused or temporary sites suitable for immediate deployment.↗
Provide safe, dignified places for unhoused and marginalized people to gather, rest, and access support.↗
Establish workable licensing and zoning conditions for health and shelter facilities to reduce overdose risk and public substance use.↗
Prioritize diversion, outreach, and services before enforcement in public space management.↗
Fund affordable recreation programs and active transportation for healthy living.↗
Expand fee assistance and low-cost recreation programs at community centres.↗
Create affordable equipment lending libraries for tools, gear, and equipment.↗
Create neighbourhood food hubs combining food distribution, meal programs, and education in food desert areas.↗
Provide compassionate, evidence-based responses connecting people experiencing homelessness to shelter and services.↗

Vancouver Liberals 23

Build new public washrooms across the city.↗
Require every new supportive housing project in Vancouver to include 24-hour public bathrooms and showers accessible to unhoused people.↗
Cut property taxes in half for family doctors and walk-in clinics in the City of Vancouver.↗
Fund the Vancouver Food Policy Council, give it a mandate to coordinate food banks, schools, and health partners, and hold it to targets for reaching seniors and youth at risk.↗
Provide free public wifi across the Downtown Eastside so residents can access housing applications, health appointments, income assistance, and emergency services.↗↗↗
Expand the UBC food hub model into vacant City-owned commercial spaces, offering low-cost groceries and food support in partnership with the Food Policy Council and local partners.↗
Lower policing costs charged to neighbourhood festivals and community events.↗
Expand and fully fund a low-income access pass for youth, families, and seniors to use community centres and pools at low or no cost.↗
Maintain City, Park Board, and Library certification as living-wage employers, and require all City contractors — including janitorial, security, and food services — to pay a living wage.↗
Reduce barriers for new licensed childcare and create new drop-in child-minding spaces using city land, new development, and community centres.↗
Create a blue-ribbon committee of public health experts, pest control specialists, businesses, and residents to build Vancouver's first formal rat-control plan with clear targets and public reporting, drawing on Toronto and New York models.↗↗↗
Have community partners check on seniors and at-risk residents who live alone during heat or wildfire smoke warnings.↗
Fund a multi-disciplinary team combining police, health, housing, and social workers to intervene early with people who cycle through emergency calls.↗
Build a renewed six-pillar framework for addressing Vancouver's drug and social crisis, replacing the Four Pillar approach, with new pillars for housing and early intervention for youth mental health, focused on moving people into care and recovery with measurable results.↗↗
Produce a city meth response strategy within the first year, covering outreach, shelter and treatment siting, and business and residential impacts, with published targets and a public report card.↗
Work with service providers to ensure every person in an encampment is offered stable housing and the support they need.↗
Support the five policy actions put forward by Battered Women's Support Services.↗↗
Advocate to other levels of government for stronger access to housing and childcare for people experiencing intimate partner violence.↗↗
Coordinate outreach teams with shelter and treatment capacity so people are moved into care rather than moved along.↗
If elected, work with the Province to negotiate a deal for Vancouver on mental health and addiction care.↗↗
Seek a new formal tri-government agreement among Vancouver, British Columbia, and Canada to coordinate action on mental health, addiction, homelessness, housing, public safety, and the toxic-drug crisis.↗
Hire 400 frontline service workers, including maintenance, community centre, and library workers, in unionized positions.↗
Move ahead with before- and after-school childcare at every Vancouver school site that can accommodate it.↗

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver 20

Establish a Violence Against Women Prevention Strategy focused on prevention, victim support, and accountability, drawing on priorities advanced by Battered Women's Support Services.↗
Establish a Municipal Intimate Partner Violence Task Force bringing together city departments, VPD, victim-service organizations, Indigenous organizations, housing providers, health partners, justice representatives, and community advocates.↗
Advocate for a 15% increase in senior-government funding for victim services, anti-violence programs, and transition houses, while reviewing city grants for additional targeted support.↗
Work with VPD and provincial partners to improve standardized intimate-partner-violence risk assessment, identify service gaps, and publish regular reporting.↗
Invest in prevention education on healthy relationships, consent, and violence prevention through city facilities, libraries, community centres, and recreation programs, in partnership with the Vancouver School Board and community organizations.↗
Appoint a City Women's Safety Lead responsible for coordinating municipal action, tracking implementation, and publishing an annual report on progress and outstanding gaps.↗
Establish an Immediate Treatment and Recovery Pathway with Vancouver Coastal Health so police, outreach workers, and other frontline services can connect people in crisis to same-day clinical assessment and referral to appropriate treatment or recovery services.↗
Negotiate a Vancouver treatment-capacity agreement with the Province and Vancouver Coastal Health to expand provincially funded detox, treatment, and recovery beds and reduce wait times for care.↗
Advocate to the Province to expand secure-care capacity for people who meet B.C.'s Mental Health Act criteria, with admission determined by qualified clinicians and subject to appropriate legal safeguards.↗
Support smaller, tightly regulated recovery homes across Vancouver through city land, zoning, permitting, and partnership agreements, with conditions including 24/7 professional staffing, sobriety and behaviour rules, zero tolerance for violence and drug use on site, and Good Neighbour requirements with compliance conditions attached to continued city support.↗
Measure service needs against available resources in the Downtown Eastside and publicly identify gaps in services and funding.↗
Work with provincial, federal, and other agencies to identify their spending and responsibilities in the Downtown Eastside and secure resources to address unmet needs.↗
Improve coordination between governments and service agencies in the Downtown Eastside to use resources more effectively and reduce unnecessary duplication.↗
Enhance food security and promote community development by encouraging local gardening on private or public property and neighbourhood farmers' markets.↗
Work with the Province to address the complex needs of people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental health issues through long-term, holistic solutions rather than emergency services, including voluntary treatment on demand, involuntary care beds, transition services, and long-term supports.↗↗
Work with provincial and federal governments to secure resources for vulnerable individuals, including full implementation of the Four Pillars (treatment on demand, harm reduction, prevention, enforcement), safe housing matched to individual needs, addiction and mental health care, addressing the overdose crisis and safe drug supply, and expanding the Car 87 program subject to needs assessment and confirmed provincial funding.↗
Replace the current management of addiction with a recovery-oriented approach.↗
Audit Downtown Eastside funding and outcomes, review programs for effectiveness, and publicly report findings.↗↗
Use City land, zoning, permitting, and partnerships to expand access to treatment and recovery-oriented housing; establish an Immediate Treatment and Recovery Pathway with Vancouver Coastal Health; and work with the Province to expand detox, treatment, recovery, and secure-care capacity.↗
Get the River District community centre and childcare facility built by the end of the council term, contingent on winning a majority on City Council.↗

OneCity Vancouver 19

Directly install cooling, air filtration, and heat pumps in approximately 500 high-risk homes at an estimated gross cost of $4–$7.5 million, with net City cost reduced by stacking BC Hydro, provincial, federal, and non-profit funding.↗↗
Re-scope the Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan to include cleaning, sanitation, accessible washrooms, and other accessibility requirements in Chinatown Plaza's interior.↗↗
Create a Vancouver Shelter Standard for all city-funded shelters to ensure they are safe and welcoming.↗↗
Move a motion to scale up childcare centre development by prioritizing childcare inclusion in new developments, funding transformation of identified City-owned amenity sites, and making the inventory of potential sites publicly accessible.↗↗↗
Create a Survivor Safety Fund delivering fast, low-barrier emergency money through frontline organizations for survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence, and establish a Community Safety Table to coordinate neighbourhood response and services for survivors.↗↗
Make it easier, cheaper, and faster to hold block parties, and create a simple process to temporarily close streets for children's play such as street hockey.↗↗↗
Create a Vancouver Shelter Standard to encourage shelters to meet the cultural and community needs of Indigenous, Two Spirit, and gender-diverse people.↗↗↗
Create a Survivor Safety Program providing low-barrier frontline services and community-led roundtables to protect survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and identify service gaps.↗↗↗
Propose a certified Working Cat program in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health, placing vaccinated cats in small shops across the city for chemical-free pest control.↗↗
Expand treatment centres, low-barrier non-profit recovery houses, and evidence-informed harm reduction education to support housing and employment stability for people with addictions.↗↗↗
Follow a Four Pillars, evidence-based approach to the drug poisoning emergency by expanding voluntary treatment and recovery programs, crisis response, and public education about substance use.↗↗
Support an increase of harm reduction services — including overdose prevention sites — through collaboration with the regional health authority and community organizations, zoning and permitting approvals, and favourable lease agreements on public property; with meaningful engagement of neighbours and businesses in implementation.↗
Provide additional grants to community organizations engaged in naloxone distribution, drug-checking services, and community outreach.↗
Advocate to other levels of government for additional mental health services, detox, patient-centred voluntary treatment, and prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic street supply.↗↗
Expand childcare spaces city-wide to reduce the burden on families.↗
Prohibit 'hostile' architecture on City-owned benches and bus shelters.↗
Restore a living wage for frontline workers at the city and school board.↗
End the ban on supportive housing so that homeless people can access stable accommodation.↗
Create a youth employment programme offering entry-level jobs and career-building experience.↗

Vote Vancouver 18

Advocate with senior governments for better wages for early childhood educators, and explore ways to help ECEs afford to live in Vancouver.↗
Set a childcare space-creation target tied to the city's estimated shortfall of approximately 4,200 spaces, and report publicly each year on spaces built, spaces still needed, and the investment plan.↗
Include not-for-profit childcare in every new public-land housing development and in community centres, libraries, and major redevelopments.↗↗
Use development contributions to fund new childcare spaces.↗
Work with faith-based organizations to include childcare in their new developments and prioritize those applications.↗
Work with the Province and regional partners to expand $10-a-day childcare and distribute spaces effectively in Vancouver and across Metro Vancouver, and ensure every City-built or City-owned facility is ready to join the program.↗↗
Fast-track permits and reduce fees for licensed childcare, especially for small and home-based operators.↗
Work with the Vancouver School Board to bring before- and after-school care to the 15 elementary schools that currently lack it, expand spaces where it already exists, offer pre-kindergarten care in school facilities during the school day, and extend care to Professional Development days and summer breaks using existing buildings.↗↗
Expand existing policies and working groups to advance a gender-based violence prevention strategy, building on a prior council motion.↗
Invest in more public washrooms to protect public health and provide universal access.↗
Help build and fund recovery programs to support people suffering from substance use disorders.↗
Pair recovery programs with affordable supportive housing.↗
Create a Seniors Desk at City Hall to provide older Vancouver residents with direct, personal help accessing City services.↗
Advocate to the province for more mental health services for young people, more school counsellors, expanded psychiatric beds and treatment capacity, and more recovery programs.↗↗
Support the St. Paul's Road to Recovery program, including building more supportive housing for program graduates and continuing to fund Vancouver Coastal Health.↗↗
Build more Recovery Community Centres across the city to connect people with peer support and wellness activities as a bridge between starting recovery and accessing detox and treatment facilities.↗↗
Recommit to a larger capital commitment for childcare in the 2027–30 Capital Plan, matching the previously pledged but unspent amount from the 2023–26 Capital Plan.↗↗
Audit underused public buildings and land to identify opportunities for additional childcare spaces, including options with extended hours and modular childcare facilities on underused land.↗↗↗

COPE 15

Ask Vancouver Coastal Health and the City to prioritize a local PrEP clinic in the Qminity building in collaboration with HiM.↗
Bring a motion to Council on supporting and improving food recovery in the city.↗
Expand affordable childcare spaces, with emphasis on $10/day spaces in Vancouver.↗
Expand existing health and affordable meal programs, establish community kitchens, and expand community gardens, seed sharing, food storage, and skill-sharing training to build food sovereignty.↗
Support peer-assisted care teams (PACTs) to respond to mental health crises as an alternative to police.↗
Apply a disability justice lens to city policies, systems, services, funding, and structures.↗
Track and report on childcare spaces, both private and public, to ensure targets are being met.↗↗
Accelerate before-and-after school childcare spaces at elementary schools across the city.↗↗
Restore the sex worker safety planning position that was previously cut, and support front-line services that protect sex workers from violence and exploitation.↗
Expand support for sex worker safety and create policy ensuring sex workers can work in safe environments, including the right to safe exit from the industry.↗
Deploy emergency shelters, supportive programming, meal programs, tiny house villages, respite day spaces, and storage for unhoused residents to urgently address homelessness.↗↗
Expand VanWifi city-wide, prioritizing currently under-served areas.↗↗
Conduct an Affordability Audit for Families to identify cost pressures on Vancouver families, create a strategy using public power to fill market gaps, deliver affordable children's programming, and lower everyday costs.↗
Fund pools, recreation facilities, and public services adequately.↗
Integrate and coordinate the network of community gardens to grow local food and increase access to growing space.↗

ABC Vancouver 6

Establish a "Three Strikes and You're Out" accountability framework for supportive housing operators, with escalating enforcement up to business licence revocation after three qualifying strikes.↗
Deliver the Vancouver Agenda to provincial and federal governments and work alongside all levels of government to secure involuntary care beds in Vancouver and a secure facility at St. Paul's or another site, within the first 100 days.↗
Double the City's current childcare spaces commitment to 4,000 new spaces.↗
Expand after-school programming.↗
Advocate for 100 or more involuntary care beds in Vancouver.↗
Require non-profit oversight and a good neighbour agreement for all public housing with street disorder issues.↗

Annette Reilly 4

Expand access to clean, accessible public washrooms.↗
Support more affordable and accessible childcare.↗
Support food security and resilient local food systems.↗
Support programming and public spaces for youth and seniors.↗

TrueBlue Vancouver 3

Keep sidewalks, parks, and public spaces usable for all residents by enforcing against permanent encampments, paired with shelter, treatment, recovery, and transitional-housing options.↗
Keep male and female sports separate and protect sex-based privacy in public washrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, shelters, and other intimate spaces.↗
Expand access to detox, treatment, and long-term recovery programs, prioritizing helping people become drug-free and rebuild independent lives.↗

John Jones 2

Push for proven, cost-effective responses to mental health and addiction rather than treating them as criminal matters.↗
Direct the City to map existing support-service programs across Vancouver, identify overlaps and gaps in coverage, and convene government departments and community organizations to develop a coordination plan.↗↗

Victoria Jung 1

Advocate on City Council, working with the School Board, provincial government, CUPE, BCTF, and other partners to expand childcare through the school system.↗