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Coast’s aging population a central concern as Community Foundation releases ‘Vital Brief’

The Sunshine Coast Community Foundation is marking the tenth anniversary of the Foundation’s first Vital Signs report with the release of a “Vital Brief.
Vital Brief
Coasters demonstrate a strong sense of community, belonging, and pride in where we live.

The Sunshine Coast Community Foundation is marking the tenth anniversary of the Foundation’s first Vital Signs report with the release of a “Vital Brief.”
The Vital Signs reports, which are conducted every few years by Community Foundations across the country, review various indicators of community health and track progress on measurements of local quality of life.

“The Coast’s aging population continues to be a central concern,” the Vital Brief notes, citing a BC Stats prediction that by 2029, there will be fewer people of traditional working age on the Coast than children and seniors.

“This has serious potential implications for many aspects of our life, including economic vitality, housing, health care, transportation, and accessibility,” the report says.

“The 2019 Vital Brief contains both good and bad news for our community,” said Vicki Dobbyn, chair of the foundation board, in a release. “We all know what a safe and healthy community this is in which to live; however, increasing numbers of our neighbours are not doing well.”

The numbers in the brief indicate despite the overall high quality of life in the community, vulnerable populations are faring worse than they did a decade ago.

The number of households registered at the Sunshine Coast Food Bank grew from 450 in 2009 to 770 in 2018, a 70 per cent increase.

The report also found that while the median household income on the Sunshine Coast has risen by six per cent since 2005 to $60,279, it ranks ninth lowest among the province’s 29 regional districts.

How people earn that income is also shifting, although construction, retail, and health care/social services remain the top three employment sectors, the most recent statistics from 2016 show the rankings have shifted from 2006.

Retail has gone from number two to number one, employing 13 per cent of Sunshine Coast workers compared to 12 per cent in 2006. Construction has dropped from number one at 13 per cent in 2006 to number two at 10 per cent in 2016.

The Vital Brief also shows that at 4.8 per cent, the Sunshine Coast has a much higher percentage of people working in the arts than the provincial or national averages (2.9 and 2.2 per cent respectively) and revenue from the Arts Crawl has increased from $30,000 in 2010 to $440,000 in 2018.

Housing costs and availability also remain an area of concern.

The Vital Brief says the percentage of local renters spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing increased by six per cent, to 52 per cent, a number that’s now well above the provincial average of 43 per cent.

“We are experiencing a severe shortage of safe, affordable and dignified housing that is paramount to the health and well-being of communities,” said Sunshine Coast Community Services executive director Catherine Leach in the report.

Crime has made headlines recently, but the Vital Brief found that compared to the rest of B.C., “the Sunshine Coast remains a safe place to live and raise a family.” The crime rate of 35.1 per 1,000 residents is less than half the provincial average of 74.2.

The Vital Brief does not look at homelessness, mental health, the opioid crisis and the availability of doctors, which the Foundation acknowledges are “serious community issues.”

“Some of the issues described by community experts cannot be well represented through statistics, either because statistics are not publicly available or because the complexities of the issues lead to a risk that the available statistics will be misleading,” the report says.

“The big takeaway from the 2019 Vital Brief is that, despite the efforts of wonderful agencies and generous donors, life is not getting any better for those among us who are most vulnerable,” said Dobbyn. “The Community Foundation looks forward to working with local governments, service providers, and other funders to find ways of addressing these challenges.”

The Vital Brief also highlights some areas where community efforts are making a significant positive impact. In 2009, only 25 per cent of waste was being diverted from the landfill to recycling facilities; that percentage is now consistently higher than 50 per cent.

Water conservation efforts have reduced the daily average usage per person from 628 litres in 2008 to 503 litres in 2018.

The full report is available at: www.sccfoundation.com