Mapping Climate Readiness for the Social Service Sector in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES)

As climate impacts intensify, the social sector in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside must adapt and enhance their climate readiness - the ability of organizations to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse climate-related events. Vancity Community Foundation is partnering with SFU Climate Innovation to bring best practice climate change risk assessment and low carbon resilience approaches to support and enhance DTES organizations’ climate-readiness. Building upon experience from SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) and ACT - Action on Climate Team, SFU Climate Innovation is co-creating a strategic climate readiness Roadmap to support adaptive capacity building with and for residents and organizations in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). 

This Roadmap will integrate best practice approaches in the social sector that aim to minimize climate risks and emissions, alongside equity, health, housing, and other organizational goals. It will be developed through a series of co-creation workshops to tailor strategies for the support organizations working with the most climate-vulnerable and disproportionately impacted residents of our communities. Knowledge and learnings from this project will be developed into resources and tools that will be mobilized to support a variety of social sector organizations in BC and across Canada.

The goal is to better understand current and projected climate impacts to DTES residents and organizations, and to explore and prioritize key opportunities, barriers, and trade-offs to building low carbon resilience planning and strategies into DTES social sector organizations.

Project Co-Leads
Tara Mahoney, Research and Engagement Manager, SFU Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi)
Alison Shaw, Executive Director, SFU Climate Innovation and ACT - Action on Climate Team
Judy Wu, PhD candidate, SFU Health Sciences; DTES Climate Resiliency Research & Advocacy Coordinator
Sreya Ajay, Master’s students in SFU Urban Studies, DTES Climate Resiliency Research Assistant

Co-Creation Partners
First United
Hogan’s Alley Society
Lookout Housing and Health Society
Recycling Alternative
UBC Learning Exchange and the Climate Equity, Action, and Resilience (CLEAR) project
UGM - Union Gospel Mission
Sean Condon, Director, Social and Economic Innovation, Vancity Community Foundation
Working Gear

Funding and Generous Support provided by:
Trottier Foundation
Vancity Community Foundation
Mitacs
Peter Gilgan Foundation
Social Innovation Canada
Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC)

To learn about how you can get involved and support this project, contact: Deborah Harford, SFU Climate Innovation at dharford@sfu.ca 

Resources