Pulse FM News Update For Tuesday, April 30th

Between April 11, 2024 and April 15, 2024 Richmond RCMP received twelve reports regarding stolen mail from single family residences. Richmond RCMP frontline officers quickly connected the reports and increased patrols in the targeted areas. Richmond RCMP Property Crime Unit in collaboration with Richmond RCMP frontline gathered evidence from which Richmond RCMP PCU officers were able to identify the two suspects. Both were arrested and released on police undertakings.

Indigenous individuals and families living in Sooke will now have access to more below-market homes in the community with the opening of 2075 Drennan St. “Critical investments like these buildings ensure that we are providing deeply affordable options on Vancouver Island while also creating more housing through partnerships with Indigenous communities, a key objective in our Homes for People Action Plan,” said Ravi Kahlon, BC Minister of Housing. “By increasing housing supply and providing affordable options, we are creating more livable spaces with housing options that fit each community’s needs.”

Proposals are being sought for eight pre-zoned housing sites on public lands that have been added to the BC Builds property list to fast-track more rental homes to be built for people with middle incomes in B.C. “Our communities and our economy depend on middle-income people like teachers, nurses and construction workers, and they depend on being able to find a decent place to live within their budget,” said Premier David Eby. “By bringing together public landowners and housing developers and operators through BC Builds, we are transforming underused public land throughout the province into thousands of lower-cost, middle-income rental homes. Launched in February 2024, BC Builds delivers more homes middle-income earners can afford through low interest financing, grant funding, and leveraging government-, community- and non-profit-owned and underused land.

Families and children living in Vancouver’s Sunset neighbourhood are benefitting from 25 new child care spaces at the ABC Montessori Children’s Centre Society. “These new spaces in the heart of Vancouver provide more families with access to affordable, quality and inclusive child care,” said Mitzi Dean, Minister of State for Child Care. “Investments like these are life-changing for families, especially by supporting parents to pursue work, school and other opportunities.”

 

Financial Resilience Institute’s October 2023 Financial Well-Being study reveals that 36% of Canadians agree or completely agree that their household debt level feels somewhat or very unmanageable. Of these households, 11% of Canadians completely agree that their household debt level feels unmanageable [1]. There has been a slight upward trend towards more Canadians reporting they are struggling with their debt, with 36% of people reporting this is a challenge in October 2023 compared to 34% of Canadians reporting the same in June 2023, 32% in June 2022; 30% in June 2021 and 31% in June 2020. 15% of Canadians that report that they are struggling with their debt manageability say they have met with a credit counsellor or credit counselling agency in the past 12 months as of October 2023. These households have a mean financial resilience score of 39.43 based on the Seymour Financial Resilience Index ® meaning that overall, these households are ‘Financially Vulnerable’