DTES Climate Readiness Roadmap Project

SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) is SFU’s first research infrastructure developed for the purpose of extending community-engaged research to provincial, national and international communities. As a way to strengthen this infrastructure, this proposal outlines the development of the SFU 312 Main Research Shop in partnership with the Vancity Community Foundation, the operating manager of 312 Main. The SFU 312 Main Research Shop is a public-facing model for community-engaged research that supports community-serving organizations (community groups, non-governmental organizations, and other organizations) by providing research services at low or no cost. It is piloted with Vancity Community Foundation and operates in collaboration with 312 Main which is a social innovation hub in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a project of VCF and where the CERi office is located.
The SFU 312 Main Research Shop provides VCF with valuable research support, enabling it to better develop and evaluate its projects and programs. While VCF supports community organizations through its various projects and programs, it is not able to provide the assistance necessary to address all the research, evaluation and knowledge mobilization needs that arise. SFU 312 Main Research Shop would fill this gap.
VCF and CERi are partnering on this MITACS application to achieve the following objectives:
• Provide funded research support to community organizations working on policy change at 312 Main, benefiting members and partners.
• Explore opportunities to build on research outcomes and recommendations.
• Contribute to the knowledge on housing security, climate justice, poverty reduction, and anti-racism through research projects, informing VCF’s strategy and programs.
For this Part 2 application, the community partner is Vancity Community Foundation.
As climate impacts intensify, social sector organizations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside aim to adapt and enhance their climate readiness by proactively anticipating, preparing for, responding to adverse climate-related events, and multi-solving across issues of housing, safety, health service delivery, etc. in a way that contributes to both resident and organizational adaptive capacity and resilience. While the sector is adept at dealing with risk, climate change exacerbates existing risks and challenges and creates new ones. The goal of this project is to bring DTES organizations and residents into a collaborative process to identify proactive and effective ways to respond to climate changes, learning from the scholarship and each other, to advance an equitable, low carbon resilient DTES neighbourhood.
An initial outcome of this program of work will be a roadmap for nonprofits and support organizations to address their climate readiness. This will integrate the 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 learning 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.

Faculty Supervisor:

Stuart Poyntz

Student:

Partner:

Vancity Community Foundation

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Finance and Insurance; Health and Related Sciences & Technology; Other services (except public administration)

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: