The City of Burnaby has made progress on 26 of the 127 actions in its Social Sustainability Strategy, introduced last summer.
Action has already been taken on about 20 per cent of the initiatives put forward, before the city has begun implementing phase one of the strategy, according to a report from the city's director of planning and building, Basil Luksun.
"We're going to do the things we can do easily first," explained Mayor Derek Corrigan, who is chair of the strategy's steering committee. "Generally we'll go in and pick as much of the low-hanging fruit as we can, things that are easily manageable that we've already started on or the ideas we've been developing for some time."
Some of the actions include continuing to advocate to other levels of government for a comprehensive and integrated childcare plan; reviewing eligibility requirements and income thresholds for the recreation credit program; leasing city-owned property for non-market and supportive housing; and continuing to build on the community school model in Burnaby.
Some of the actions required a simple fix, as in the case of the recreation credit program - the city made the credit available to single lower-income adults in the community, in addition to families, as of Sept. 1 - while others will require ongoing work, Corrigan said.
The issues will likely become more challenging as staff works through the agenda, he added, and some will require a lot of advocacy and work with the federal and provincial levels of government.
"The biggest challenge in social sustainability strategy is, so many of the things are outside our control," he said. "So the issues that we face in our community, a lot of them are influenced by federal and provincial policy."
These issues include affordable housing, social services, poverty, and homelessness, Corrigan added, and fall under the jurisdiction of senior levels of government.
"It's frustrating for us because we know what the problems are, we just don't have all of the tools necessary to solve those problems, he said.
Other levels of government are focused on "big-picture issues," according to Corrigan, such as international relations and the economic climate.
"They forget about real people and the problems that are there on the ground for real people," he said.
The city is dealing with this challenge by doing what is in its power before going to the other levels of government with expectations about what they should do, according to Corrigan.
An example of this is the feasibility study the city is funding on the possibility of an affordable housing development on a site on Hastings Street.
The city will be working with the regional government and other cities on some of the initiatives as well, Corrigan said.
"One of the critical issues is housing affordability," he said. "We're working in the Metro Vancouver housing committee as a region to deal with those issues.
"We think we have a lot more clout as a region than we do as regional municipalities," he added.
The city is prioritizing actions for phase one of the 10-year strategy, which will encompass the work needed during the next three to four years, with a specific work plan for the first year, 2012.
City staff will present the plan to council in the new year, according to Luksun's report.
