Overview

The Climate Resilience Roadmap for Non-Profits: From Crisis to Collective Power is a practical, community-informed framework designed to help social service organizations anticipate, respond to, and recover from the growing impacts of climate change. Co-created with non-profit organizations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), the Roadmap translates lived, frontline experience into shared strategies that strengthen collective resilience.

Rooted in years of partnership with DTES organizations based at 312 Main, the Roadmap responds to the compounding realities facing the neighbourhood: rising social needs, limited resources, worker burnout, and overlapping crises related to housing insecurity, poverty, and the drug poisoning emergency. Climate impacts—such as extreme heat and wildfire smoke—are already affecting health and safety, particularly for seniors, people on low or fixed incomes, and those facing stigma and marginalization.

At the same time, the DTES is a place of deep resilience. Peer-led networks and frontline organizations are already responding through mutual aid, extreme weather supports, and community-driven solutions. The Climate Resilience Roadmap builds on these strengths, offering a shared pathway for organizations and communities in the DTES—and beyond—to prepare for the challenges ahead.

The accompanying Technical Report provides detailed context, data, and policy analysis informing these strategies, while the At-a-Glance Summary offers a concise overview of short- and long-term actions for implementation.