Nobody grows up with the aspiration to be the poster child for homelessness, but you take what you’ve been given, right?” Katrina Blanchard-Gervais laughs at the absurdity of it all, and she sounds more bright than bitter. After two years in homeless shelters, the mother of six now has an apartment as part of an […]
Salt Spring Joins 20,000 Homes
July 2, 2015 by
Salt Spring Community Services has signed onto a national initiative that strives to house 20,000 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people by July 1, 2018. The 20,000 Homes Campaign starts from the evidence-supported premise that permanent housing is a necessary first step to helping people work on the underlying problems that can cause homelessness, such […]
Food Coupon Program Improves Access
July 2, 2015 by
More Salt Springers can add a dash of healthy and local ingredients to their daily menu thanks to a successful food coupon program for seniors and low-income families. As many as 18 seniors and 20 families have participated in the weekly program since Tuesday Farmers’ Market vendors began to offer fresh produce in May, according […]
Service Delivery Changes Announced for Salt Spring Mental Health Services
May 5, 2015 by
Salt Spring Island Community Services welcomed the news from Island Health this week that they are increasing funding for mental health supports that have, so far, been unavailable or underfunded on Salt Spring. Island Health announced that they are increasing investment in mental health and substance use care provision on Salt Spring and the […]
Core Inn Energy Audit
April 28, 2015 by
The Core Inn underwent an interesting review of it’s energy efficiency which included such high-tech processes of photographing every wall with an infrared camera and conducting a blower test to discover air leakage. We included a teaching component in the process for a group of Gulf Island Secondary students. The report has just landed on […]
United Way Funding
April 28, 2015 by
SSICS will receive $ 100,000 for each of the next two years from United Way of Greater Victoria. This is a significant reduction from past years, and it required some quick and difficult analysis to determine where the funding would be best allocated. We determined that a simple formula of $ 75,000 for Mental Health […]
People’s Roots
April 28, 2015 by
With our garden activities off and running for the season we have undertaken an updating of the communications strategy including a new name and image. As this program area has expanded we have moved from “Food Bank” to “Food Security” to “Food Programs” (all rather bland) to a more interesting name “People Roots: Growing […]
Housing First
April 28, 2015 by
Our Housing First program hosted a very successful forum on homelessness. The invitation only event was attended by many community stakeholders, politicians (Elizabeth May, Gary Holman, Wayne MacIntyre, Peter Grove) and service providers. We are pulling together notes from that meeting and planning a follow up session focusing specifically on support services that are required […]
Salt Spring Island Celebrates Youth Week
April 27, 2015 by
Community partners across Salt Spring Island are joining to support Salt Spring Youth Week. Salt Spring Community Services and the Core Inn and Climbing Wall, PARC and the Rainbow Road Pool, the Salt Spring Island Library, Country Grocer and Thrifty’s are sponsoring the week in tandem with the 21st annual BC Youth Week running May […]
New Housing Needs Survey Highlights Local Challenges
April 20, 2015 by
A family housing survey completed last month confirmed that many Salt Spring Island households are challenged to find suitable and secure housing within their financial means. The survey, conducted by Salt Spring Community Services, considered the full range of long term housing needs – from very low-income households looking for rentals to dual income households wanting to […]
