Tag Archives: Whaletown

Housing, Poverty

Potentially More than 1200 ‘housing unstable’ in the SRD

There may be more than 1,200 ‘housing unstable’ people in the Strathcona Regional District. 

This figure arises from a statement Emma Wallace, of the Rural Development Network, made when she released the comments from the ‘Collecting Stories of Where you Live’ data collection project.

Wallace’s organization was commissioned by the Campbell River & District Coalition to End Homelessness (CRDCEH) and the Urban Indigenous Housing and Wellness Coalition (UIHWC) to conduct the housing and service needs estimation in the Strathcona Regional District earlier this year. The ‘stories’ her organization collected were written responses to the housing needs survey.

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Indigenous Nations, Tourism

Summer 2022 has been very busy for QXMC

Jason Johnson has been the General Manager of Qathen Xwegus (QXMC) for a little over four months. He took the helm of the Klahoose First Nation’s  management corporation during a busy tourist season. Johnson was back home with his family in Sayward when Cortes Currents interviewed him over ZOOM.

“I first wanted to acknowledge that I’m talking to you today on National Truth and Reconciliation Day, and I’m calling in from my home office in the unseated territory of the Comox First Nation,” he began.

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Housing

Getting Rainbow Ridge ready for the next step

The Cortes Community Housing Society had a number of updates to announce as they work towards having a town hall meeting for their Rainbow Ridge project.

“We’re very much looking forward to having this town hall meeting, potentially near the end of October, but please stay tuned. We’ll announce the date, the time, and the place as soon as we can get all  the parties together and have all our documentation and designs ready to exhibit,”  said Executive Director, Sandra Wood.  

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Housing, Poverty, Rivers & Oceans

Trying to clean up Cortes Island’s abandoned boats and provide homes for the homeless 

There are probably a dozen abandoned boats on Cortes Island right now, and Dominic dos Santos would like to have them towed away.

“A lot of them are floating. Some of them just have no names on them. People just leave them there. it’s just been 15 years of ‘not my problem.’  We have fiberglass shards on every beach now because they abandon the boats and let ’em get destroyed on the rocks . All this stuff is gonna wind up on the beach in the next five, 10 years?” he said.

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Communications

High Speed Internet could reach Cortes Island as early as December

Cortes Island’s new high speed internet system could be live as early as December, otherwise early in 2023.

Randy, from CityWest, gave Cortes Currents a very graphic illustration of what this will mean. I am currently downloading data from the internet at a rate of 21.35 megabits per second (Mbps) and uploading at 6.50 Mbps.  Randy discussed plans for up to 100 or up to 500 Mbps, download and upload, depending on how much I wanted to pay. That ‘up to’ is important because customers might not experience these speeds at their computer terminals, but we are still talking about much faster service. He also said there are no limits for the number of gigabytes I could use in a month, hence no overage charges.

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