Safety Tag

A Year In Review

A huge part of what we do at the Strathcona BIA is deliver on programs that improve maintenance, cleanliness, sanitation and safety across the district. Our programs have been developed to support the wellbeing of the businesses and people in the district, based on the needs and feedback we hear from members. Helping to keep our streets clean and safe, and buildings graffiti-free are part of our core services to Strathcona BIA members. We contribute to mural restoration and maintenance, and bring vibrancy to the community through funding new mural projects in Strathcona. This past year, we also supported members to make their own exterior property enhancements through our Safe and Welcome grant program to encourage a safer and more welcoming community for all. We continue to advocate for more resources and external sources of funding so that SBIA members alone aren’t being asked to address the cleanliness, sanitation, and graffiti challenges in the area. Some examples include graffiti abatement grants from the City of Vancouver and continued investment and accountability from the City for street cleaning resources.

Here’s the high-level breakdown of impacts we’ve achieved.

4600+ graffiti tags removed

2738 street cleaning hours

7000+ square feet of high-level graffiti removals

1640+ bags of garbage removed

12+ murals maintained

2220+ needles removed

$35,000 in graffiti abatement funding secured

5899 hours dedicated to community safety

46 private property debris pick-ups

40+ safety reports logged each day

Graffiti Removal & Graffiti Removal Pilot Program

Graffiti continues to be a challenge in Strathcona and across the city. Over the last year we saw the volume and size of graffiti increase and upper elevations of buildings and murals being targeted more often. This year we successfully advocated for and received another $35,000 in funding from the City of Vancouver to put towards graffiti abatement for a total of $70,000 over the last two years. With the help of the abatement grant we were able to add additional capacity to our graffiti removal program in May 2022. Working with our graffiti removal program service provider, Goodbye Graffiti, we added more capacity for removals through the summer months, with additional hours dedicated to a Strathcona-specific graffiti removal vehicle. 

Over the last year we removed over 4600 tags and 7000 square feet of high-level tags. In the first month of our pilot program we almost doubled our capacity, removing over 27,000 square feet of graffiti tags, compared to an average of 14,000 square feet of removals the months prior to the pilot. Reported tags are being removed faster which over time can help to deter prolific taggers from targeting our district as frequently. Strathcona BIA members continue to receive unlimited removals of tags 12 feet and under, and all labour, supply and removal costs are covered within the scope of the program, saving time and money for our members! 

Street Cleaning & Private Property Debris Pick-Up

We partner with Coast Mental Health, United We Can, and Mission Possible Maintenance to provide street cleaning services in the Strathcona BIA district. These impactful partnerships create inclusive job opportunities for local people in our community. Between all program partners, team members have picked up over 1640 bags of litter, and 2220 needles across the entire district over the last year, working over 2738 hours or an average of 52 hours per week. Our teams are here to keep the area clean and support members each day. 

Additional street cleaning funding is provided by the City through the 2022 Street Cleaning Grant Program. For the Downtown Eastside and Strathcona neighbourhoods, this results in additional micro-cleaning shifts each week across the district. This allows the Strathcona BIA to provide more resources to other sanitation programs like our Private Property Debris Pick-up program. We helped complete 46 private property debris pick-ups this last year and make daily reports to VanConnect for debris in lanes and on public property, saving members money in removal fees, plus their valuable time.

Community Safety

Members can call 604-789-4143, seven days a week from 8am to 6pm to reach our community safety team, who dedicated 5899 hours to enhancing safety for SBIA members, customers and community members over the past year. Everyday our compassionate patrol team is on the ground in the district, responding quickly to member needs and connecting with community members. The team currently divides their time between both vehicle patrols and foot patrols, and play a huge role in reporting debris and other maintenance-related issues throughout the district. The team works to keep the area clean and safe and spend their time responding to member calls for service, conducting hotspot checks through the district, assisting with emergency services and reporting debris and graffiti. The data and reports gathered by the team helps us to keep institutional partners accountable, and advocate for additional safety and sanitation resources where needed across the district. We are consistently working toward ensuring our approach to community safety is responsible, valued, and holistic.

Murals: Restoration, Maintenance, and New Projects

We’ve continued to invest in mural restoration and upkeep. We repaired and refreshed over 12 murals this year, and remain invested in ensuring murals in Strathcona are well maintained. We’re also excited to have brought new murals to the community in partnership with Vancouver Mural Festival and local property owners. At 1295 Frances Street, artist Caleb Ellison-Dysart created a mural piece called miskinâhk, an ode to Turtle Island, the name various Indigenous nations have always called “North America” since time immemorial. The artist hopes the mural will serve as inspiration to take care of Turtle Island and all its inhabitants, and to not forget our responsibility to the life around us. In total, four new murals came to Clark Drive this year as part of Vancouver Mural Festival, adding a whole new level of vibrancy to this corridor. In addition, our twelve tree planters in and around East Hastings were officially refreshed with a new mural design titled Sacred Mountains by artist Zac George. We are proud to be a part of supporting more vibrant murals throughout Strathcona, and in particular focusing on uplifting Indigenous artists and dedicating more visual space in Strathcona to their impactful work.

Safe and Welcoming Grant

In July of 2021 we launched the Safe and Welcoming grant, after hearing from members that more investment in environmental safety is a priority. The goal of the program was to help our members make safety and beautification investments that will attract people to the area and create a more safe and welcoming community for all. We approved close to $8000 in matching grants for eight separate projects, which resulted in a total community investment of over $19,000. From facade improvements, to new outdoor patio builds, to new awnings and signage, it was fantastic to see business and property owners take initiative to invest in these improvements with the help of the Safe and Welcoming Grant.

In the lead up to this year’s AGM we are sharing a series of reports with our business community on all that we’ve been up to in service to you, our members. First up, safety and sanitation!

We remain as  committed as ever to delivering on programs that improve cleanliness and sanitation across the district. Helping to keep our streets clean and safe, and buildings graffiti-free is part of our core services to the Strathcona community. In the past year this has become more challenging, as the district continues to experience rising rates of graffiti. Advocating for more resources and new solutions was an important part of our work on these issues. 

Street Cleaning

We partner with Coast Mental Health, United We Can, and Mission Possible Maintenance to provide street cleaning services in the Strathcona BIA district. These impactful partnerships create inclusive job opportunities for local people in our community. Between all program partners, team members have picked up over 1000+ bags of litter and 2960 needles across the entire district in the last year, working over 2411 hours or an average of 46 hours per week. Our teams are here to keep the area clean and support members each day. 

Clearly, street litter is a big problem. Through advocacy efforts by the BIA’s, City Council approved additional funding for street cleaning programming city-wide, and allocated $2.1 million in funding for the 2021 Street Cleaning Grant Program. For the Downtown Eastside and Strathcona neighbourhoods this has resulted in an additional 18 micro-cleaning shifts per week. This allowed us to shift more resources towards specific areas of the district as well as our Private Property Debris Pick Up program. We helped complete 70 private property debris pick-ups this last year and make daily reports to VanConnect for debris in lanes and on public property, saving members over $10,000 in removal fees, plus their valuable time.

From Strathcona Pilot to City Service

A big point of pride for us this year was supporting the launch of the social enterprise, The Crap Trapper. Initiators Mark and Elwood saw a need in the community and stepped up to provide a valuable bio-waste pick-up service with support from the Strathcona BIA. Before this, no dedicated service existed for human and animal waste pick-up and removal, often leaving businesses on the hook to deal with this tough task on their own. The Strathcona BIA was a key player in identifying this need and called attention to this from the City. Since then, the program has not only expanded, but is now a City-provided and funded service that members can access through 3-1-1. Mark and Elwood joined forces with Mission Possible to continue to deliver the service, and Strathcona is benefitting from patrols, removals, and on-call service. While advocacy for more public washrooms continues, this has been a big win in improving sanitation across the district in 2021.

Graffiti Removal

Members have access to a comprehensive graffiti removal program through our contract with Goodbye Graffiti Vancouver (a Strathcona business!). In the last few years, the overall size of a graffiti tag within the SBIA district has increased by 70%. The number of calls Goodbye Graffiti receives from the SBIA and members for graffiti removal has doubled in the past 1.5 years. Through our program, we have removed 7,386 graffiti tags in the district over the last year. SBIA members receive unlimited removals of tags 12 feet and under. The program also helped to remove 4,595 square feet of high level tags, a new service being offered through the program. It takes Goodbye Graffiti around 30 minutes to remove a tag the size of a small car from a painted surface. For porous surfaces, a graffiti tag the size of a small car takes around 45 min to remove. All labour, supply, and removal costs are covered within the scope of the program. These time and money savings add up for our members! This program also helps prevent City bylaw infractions and potential fees for our property owners and businesses.

In partnership with other BIA districts across Vancouver we successfully advocated for and secured more funding to handle this challenging issue. We received $35,000, one of the highest amounts from the City of Vancouver, for additional graffiti removal services. This funding will enhance our ability to target graffitti and leverage your levy contributions even further.  As always, we also continue to think outside the box on solutions for the rise in graffiti tagging, with initiatives like meaningful mural art with respected local artists, working with the VPD to allocate more preventative resources, and connecting with other community partners to raise the impacts that graffiti has on our members, especially small businesses.

Community Safety

Members can call 604-789-4143, seven days a week from 8am-8pm to reach our safety patrol team who dedicated 6,126 hours to keeping members, customers, and the community safe over the past year. Everyday our compassionate patrol team is on the ground in the district, responding quickly to member needs and connecting with community members. The safety team is our most used program and we are consistently working towards ensuring our approach to community safety is responsible, valued, and holistic. With this in mind, we launched our first annual safety survey this year to better understand how Strathcona BIA members feel about safety in the neighbourhood. Advocacy, Environmental Safety, and Patrols emerged as the priority areas for investment. We received 64 completed surveys, representing 113 businesses and properties across Strathcona. We’re excited to build on this feedback and future engagement to develop a new and strong community safety model for the Strathcona BIA. Stay tuned for updates! 

Advocacy is an enormous part of our work in all of these areas. For more on our advocacy efforts and impacts read our advocacy report. 

We’re about to launch an engagement with our members about safety.

Here’s the background.

At our 2019 AGM, we set out to re-envision our safety model with the goal of co-creating a program that is adaptive to member needs and more responsive to the rising social, economic, and health issues in East Vancouver. The Strathcona BIA Board and Staff have been working towards this goal ever since, while also maintaining and improving our current safety program. 

Advocacy to all levels of government, raising the business voice in the media, and building community partnerships are some of the avenues the Strathcona BIA actively pursues to help improve safety in our neighbourhood. In addition, the Strathcona Community Safety Program, our largest program, currently operates as an on-call patrol working 7 days a week from 8am-10pm. A day in the life of the team includes foot and vehicle patrols, working with the Strathcona Community Policing Centre, responding to member calls, data reporting, needle disposal, graffiti and debris reporting, connecting vulnerable community members to resources, meet and greets and more.

How did we get here?

The Strathcona BIA was founded on safety and security principles in service to the businesses, employees, and customers who come through the community every day. Safety and the perception of safety is still cited as a primary concern for SBIA members. To help address these concerns the Strathcona BIA created an ongoing security program. The program has evolved over the years from a traditional security program to a community-serving model. This evolution, in part, has been driven by changes in the legal landscape around what a private security company can and can’t do and the rights of citizens on private property adjacent to public property. Strathcona as a whole has a long history of political activism and a high concentration of social services addressing everything from drug use and addictions to mental health. Many of the social service organizations are members of the Strathcona BIA. Fostering relationships with local service providers, social enterprises, and institutional partners is one way to help build and develop long term solutions to many challenges that SBIA members and community members face.

How we plan to evolve our safety model

We’re ready to continue the evolution of our safety programming to have an even bigger impact on the safety and well-being of our community. Changing our safety model requires a hard look at the data. It requires research and a review of best practices. It requires partnership. And, most importantly, it requires that we speak to our 800+ members about safety and security across the district. We are committed to listening deeply to our members which is why we are launching: Let’s Talk About Safety, our new annual community safety survey for Strathcona BIA members. 

We’ve chosen a platform called Ethelo. Ethelo is more than your typical survey tool. It’s a platform where you can engage in dialogue, vote on priorities, and see the district-wide results in real time. Once you sign-up to participate you can return back to the conversation, re-visit answers, and continue to contribute your perspectives. 

We’ll be asking members to weigh in on:

• What safety means to you
• Your experiences with the current safety program and model
• How should the Strathcona BIA approach safety across the district

The survey will be open for four weeks starting next week. It takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes to complete, depending on how much you want to share on the platform. All Strathcona BIA members will receive a link to the survey next week. If you missed it, and are an SBIA member who would like the link, please reach out to us at info@strathconabia.com.

While we gather the results from the survey engagement, staff will undertake a robust analysis of our current program data from over the last two years. In addition, we will conduct research on other community safety models and review best practices both close to home and from around the world. All this information taken together will inform our safety programming framework moving forward.

Community Engagement

Any future safety model of the Strathcona BIA will be brought to the wider community for consultation. We intend to engage community experts from diverse backgrounds including people representing marginalized groups, social service providers, local community centres, Indigenous groups, social enterprises, and community members at large in future phases of our safety program development. We know that partnerships and strong working relationships are integral to our success as an organization and as a district. As bridge-builders, we’re always looking for opportunities for connection within our diverse community. 

If you have any questions or concerns about our upcoming engagement around safety programming please reach out to us as info@strathconabia.com.

We’ve launched a pilot COVID-19 Recovery Grant Program to support businesses and property owners that have been affected by the pandemic.

We want to help your business navigate COVID-19 through the fall of 2020. This program is intended to help our members manage unexpected expenses, reduce the financial burden of COVID-19, attract customers and guests to the area, invest in placemaking improvements, and to help businesses invest in their own staff.

A funding pool of $35,000 has been allocated to help businesses and property owners keep their doors open through this period of uncertainty. Grants are open to all eligible SBIA members. Applications will be reviewed in the order they are received, and will be approved on a first-come, first-served basis. Applications will be accepted till December 31, 2020 or until the funding pool has been fully allocated.

Each member is eligible for a matching reimbursement grant of up to 50% for all SBIA approved project/supply costs to a maximum of $1,000. Members can apply for multiple grants up to a maximum of $1,000 per member across all grant areas. All grants will be paid after the work or supplies have been completed or purchased. Recipients will not need to repay the funds at any time. Approved grantees must provide the SBIA with an invoice for work completed no later than March 31, 2021.

To help you navigate the challenges of COVID-19 and to promote a safe, supportive and clean area for employees, community members and customers, we’re offering grants in the following areas:

To help you safely operate your business for both customers and employees. Grant recipients will receive 50% of the cost of the project, or supplies up to $1,000 for:

• Personal protection supplies
  • Hand sanitizer, gloves, face masks, face shields, gowns, etc.
• Social distancing infrastructure
  • Plastic barriers, line queuing, floor and wall decals, etc

To attract customers, improve private property amenities and exterior property improvements. Grant recipients will receive 50% of the cost of the project or supplies up to $1,000 for:

• Exterior building improvements
  •  Façade, lighting, signage, murals, etc.
• Public and private property infrastructure
  • Sidewalk cafe, patios, benches, small gardens, etc.

To improve the security and outside sanitation of your business or property. Grant recipients will receive 50% of the cost of the project or supplies up to $1,000 for:

• Safety infrastructure
  • Cameras, or fencing
• Sanitation and cleanliness
  • Power washing, smell disinfectant, scrub treatments, etc.

To assist businesses in developing, training, implementing, and promoting inclusive practices within their business or organization. Grant recipients will receive 50% of the cost of the project or supplies up to $1,000 for:

• Training
  • Workshops and sessions with business/organization employees and management
• Expert support
  • Developing and implementing inclusive practices and policies

Eligibility Requirements

• The Applicant must operate or own a business/property in good standing located with the SBIA catchment area
• The Applicant must be the business owner, property owner, or designated representative
• For business applicants, a valid business license must be held
• All funding requests must be used to support and strengthen business activities
• In cases of building improvements/property improvements, the property owner must be notified and agree to the to proposed improvements
• Applications must be received and approved by the SBIA in advance of any work in order to receive a grant. Grants cannot be applied retroactively to work already completed.

Ineligible Costs

• Operating or regular maintenance costs
• Staffing costs and/or time that is incurred to implement the project
• Improvements and upgrades made prior to the date of application approval
• Marketing and promotions (online promotions, ads, billboards, bus stops etc.)

The grant program will be open until Dec. 31st, 2020 or until the funding pool of $35,000 has been allocated to members.

How to Apply for the COVID-19 Recovery Grant:

1. Confirm that you meet the Eligibility Requirements listed above.
2. Fill-out the SBIA COVID-19 Reopening and Recovery Grant application form below.
3. Within the application: provide a quote for any placemaking, safety & sanitation, and diversity and inclusion grant applications including cost estimates of proposed work. Recovery grant applications don’t require quotes prior to approval.
4. Within the application: Provide a written statement in 200 words or less on what you intend to do, why this grant will help, and the impact it will have on your business/property. In this statement please demonstrate the need and what you will be using the funds for.

Next Steps After You Apply for a Grant:

1. A SBIA team member will review your application.
2. Within 7-14 days you will receive a decision from the SBIA about your grant application
3. If applicable, a SBIA team member will schedule a Zoom meeting or phone call to review and discuss your application.
4. Successful applicants will be required to sign a contract between the applicant and SBIA that includes: terms of the grant, grant amount, and project details before beginning work on their project.
5. Approved grantees must provide the SBIA with the agreed-upon documentation including all receipts, records of expenses, and before/after pictures, if applicable.
6. Approved grantees must provide the SBIA with an invoice for work completed no later than March 31, 2021.
7. The SBIA may ask for a testimonial related to the grant application and to confirm that the grant funding was used in accordance with the agreed-upon criteria.