Issues & Trends from the Executive Director
As the reality of COVID-19 became apparent in March, we entered an unprecedented time in our history as an agency, a community and around the world. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have led with two goals in mind; to keep the people we support and our employees as safe and healthy as possible. It was very difficult to navigate through the often-shifting information and advice. As a leadership team, we successfully put in place a disaster response plan and numerous protocols. We are grateful to our essential workers. They have continued to show courage, dedication and commitment to the individuals supported and we have all remained healthy.
As we start to support people to be more engaged with their community, we will continue to follow our COVID-19 Response Principles, the advice of Dr. Bonnie Henry and Ministry of Health guidelines, and our health and safety policies and protocols. This includes identifying risk and then implementation strategies for re-starting and continuing our services.
The rezoning and development permit application has been submitted to Saanich for our main building site. This process may take up to a year. The plans include 41 affordable housing with a mix of unit types and rent. Our intention is that between 10 – 20% of the units will be for the people we support. The next phase is public engagement and CLV will be having virtual meetings with the neighbourhood associations and are presenting to the Saanich Heritage Foundation in June.
Both the Vipond Classic Golf Tournament held at the Royal Colwood Golf Club and our signature concert in November have been cancelled. We are so grateful to the supporters of those events for their donations despite the cancellations. They include Peninsula Co-op, and Keycorp Corporation. We also received significant support through the Rapid Relief Fund. The community stepped up. Thank you.
Our April CARF survey was postponed due to the pandemic. We are expecting our survey to occur in October or November. This likely will be a virtual survey. We continue to prepare and are confident that our 6th survey will be successful.
The Reach for the Sun direct mail campaign is currently underway. This will ensure the people we support receive necessities and something fun over the summer.
The annual Foundation BBQ was cancelled. It was so great that on June 24th almost 100 people in our community homes and apartment programs received a takeout lunch from Romeos. The virtual BBQ was a hit!
The General meeting in May was cancelled due to COVID-19. The AGM on September 16th will be via Zoom. We will be putting forward a slate of potential new board members and will provide updates from both CLV and the Foundation, as well as continuous service awards to our staff.
Stay healthy, and I hope that you will enjoy the summer.
