Homelessness & Poverty Inc need to break up

Shocking homeless numbers:

167,000 Canadian orgs spend $34B/year on homelessness.

An estimated 235,000 Canadians impacted by homelessness/year.

$34B ÷ 235,000 = $144,680/person/year

But wait, it gets worse.

Every night in Canada, aprox 35,000 Canadians are #homeless.

$34B ÷ 35,000 = $971,428/person/year

"There must be a better, more cost-effective way to achieve results through co-ordinating this confusing jumble of services."

Ya think?

Bringing it All Together: Integrating Services to Address Homelessness

https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Homelessness-Turner-Krecsy-final.pdf

Meanwhile in Calgary, The Death of the World's Largest Community Visioning & Consultation Process

 imagineCalgary, Calgary's 100 year plan, is dead.

The iC Plan included 114 targets within 32 goal areas & was developed based on 5 systems: Built Environment System Economic System Governance System Natural Environment System Social System

The city referred to iC in almost every single communique for 15 years, then suddenly poof, no more mention. The department disappeared. No more interaction. Completely abandoned. Then suddenly, a new strategy appears out of thin air.

.

No mention of how #YYC did on 114 targets & 32 goal areas, just the magical appearance of a new strategy initiative. No reference to iC which was heralded by all at

@cityofcalgary

& #yyccc as the largest civic engagement of its type in global history. iC's been ghosted.

And this is how the

@cityofcalgary

bureaucracy functions. Disregard for previous work by citizens/admin because the new bureaucracy needs new projects to justify their existence. So, what's a bureaucracy to do? Throw the baby out with the bathwater & start all over.

After 15 years, no one knows what we did, or didn't, achieve. That's mismanagement & a waste of resources & time. Citizens were deceived, believing that a long term vision was being implemented & that a map/strategy existed for the objective of a better Calgary.

Without independent monitoring, there is no trusted accountability mechanism in place. But holy fuck, did the city ever milk the shit out of iC. And we believed them. Again. The real losers? Our youth, whose future the city routinely abandons.

This blog post highlights the frivolous approach to such an important plan. It's embarrassingly childlike in its execution. This was not the engagement stage, which would have been appropriate, this is implementation.

http://www.the23rdstory.com/hesters-blog/imagine-calgary

With yet another plan in the works, why are we now going to believe this one is "The Plan" when the previous one, The Mother of All Plans, failed so epically?

And this is how the

@cityofcalgary

bureaucracy functions. Disregard for previous work by citizens/admin because the new bureaucracy needs new projects to justify their existence. So, what's a bureaucracy to do? Throw the baby out with the bathwater & start all over.

SOLE: Calgary State of Local Emergency: Applicable Legislation & Bylaws

 The safety, health or welfare of Calgarians is decreed in legislation. 

1. Emergency Management Bylaw 25M2002 (Calgary/Municipal)

Pursuant to the Emergency Management Act, RSA 2000 c. E-6.8 the council of a municipality is required or authorized to establish committees to declare local emergencies, develop emergency plans and direct emergency response.

Emergency Management Committee

2. Sec 24 of EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ACT (Alberta/Provincial)

3. CEMA: Calgary Emergency Management Agency

When the Going Gets Tough, the TUFF Gets Growing. Rebranding the TUC to the TUFF Corridor

When the Going Gets Tough, the TUFF Gets Growing. Rebranding the TUC to the TUFF Corridor
Event page: Rebrand the TUC to TUFF Corridor
https://www.facebook.com/events/534989120766213/

Event Action: Write an email to Minister of Infrastructure Alberta

Background:
Presently referred to as the Transportation & Utility Corridor (TUC), we are seeking a rebranding to the Transportation, Utility, Farm & Food Corridor (TUFFCorridor). This means that 29,000 unused acres in YEG & YYC would also be prioritized for agricultural production and the establishment of an Alberta Food System.

Alberta consumes 66,000,000 food items/day. 24,090,000,000 food items/year.

Developing an Alberta Food System and feeding ourselves is the largest economic development opportunity Alberta has right now.

Event Action specifics:
You can assist this event action by simply writing a brief email to (please cc or bcc us at policy@growcalgary.ca):

To: infrastructure.minister@gov.ab.ca

Subject Access to TUC Land & Rebranding the TUC

Attn Prasad Panda, Minister of Infrastructure Alberta

1. Please identify which lands are available through the TUC Agriculture Lease process.

2. Please send me an application form for this land.

3. Please change the name of the Transportation & Utility Corridor (TUC) to the Transportation, Utility, Farm & Food Corridor (TUFFCorridor) to better reflect its potential.

4. Please use TUFF Corridor land assets to grow food, build a powerful food system, create thousands of JOBS & for #FeedingAlberta.

Respectfully,

Your name

ps You can also cc premier@gov.ab.ca & your MLA.

Post your letters & responses. Together we can get Alberta Growing!

When the Going Gets Tough, the TUFF Gets Growing.

1 year ago Grow Calgary had a commitment for new land from the Alberta Gov + Infrastructure Alberta. This is not an action about Grow Calgary exclusively. It is about access to almost 30,000 acres of unused land in Edmonton & Calgary presently (mis)managed by Infrastructure Alberta so that we can build hundreds, even thousands of farms and projects to stimulate our economy in these unprecedented times. Access to land is step #1 in building an Alberta Food System.

ABC's of an Alberta Food System

A=Access Land
B=Build the small scale infrastructure
C=Cultivate
D=Distribute
E=Eat
Repeat.

A global pandemic & a year later, #FoodSecurity is more important than ever. It is very unfortunate that Infrastructure Alberta manages 29,000 unused acres of land in our 2 largest cities in the arbitrary & myopic manner they do.
They stubbornly refuse to allow access to even small parcels of land (1-20 acres) and they've denied Albertans access to this land for 40 years.

Cuba became so reliant on the Soviet Union for food they failed to create their own food system. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it resulted in severe food shortages for Cuba. Alberta & Canada’s dependence on the USA/China for our food is risky and a gamble we do not have to take.

Enough is enough. Albertans require access to land in order to create new jobs by building an Alberta Food System that is independent, resilient, robust, local and does not rely solely on foreign food production to #FeedAlberta.

Beginning on 01April2020, the joke is no longer on citizens. There is no longer any justification for withholding this enormous land inventory from citizens wanting to build a resilient, robust, accessible, fair & local food system.

A campaign to call out Infrastructure Alberta on their 4 decades of hoarding land is being launched. Join us in asking land assets to be used for growing food, building a powerful food system, creating jobs & #FeedingAlberta.

Now is the time to put pressure on Infrastructure Alberta and convince them that Infrastructure isn't exclusively roads & bridges. A healthy food system should be part of our infrastructure priorities. This is referred to as Social Infrastructure or Heart Infrastructure, as opposed to Traditional/Hard Infrastructure.

Thank you for your efforts everyone!

Growing Together!

Extreme Cold Mismanagement at Emergency Management

18Jan2019

Extreme Cold Mismanagement at Emergency Management

Homeless populations are particularly vulnerable to extreme cold weather. Bitter cold is life threatening to the homeless and other vulnerable individuals. 

Contrary to their own official documentation and policy, Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) failed in their duty to respond promptly and effectively to the extreme cold weather event Calgary experienced from 12Jan2020-19Jan2020.

Unlike Edmonton, Calgary has no official policy or protocol on Extreme Cold Weather Response to Protect the Vulnerable. 

Edmonton City Extreme Weather Protocol
Edmonton City Policy: Supporting Vulnerable People During Extreme Weather Conditions
Edmonton responds to Extreme Cold 

What CEMA was supposed to do, but didn't:

CEMA Annual budget: $5.2M

Indie Initiatives: Image drop