The tag for my campaign is: Housing. Safety. Kindness. Which indicates what I think are the three critical issues we need to address.

The cost of rent and of buying a new home is increasingly unaffordable. There's a range of strategies we can employ around densification to reduce the cost of servicing units, pre-zoning areas for greater lot coverage, asking the province to extend the foreign buyer's tax to Kamloops, and increasing energy efficiency.

Safety is key. We must think of safety broadly, including mitigating the effects of climate disasters to prevent heat deaths, working to prevent deaths from the toxic drug supply, addressing bullying and harassment based on gender, race, or sexual orientation, addressing gang violence and shootings, addressing property crime, and creating a sense of personal security when walking through the city core.

Finally kindness, we need to take down the temperature when discussing the above issues. We need to remind each other that every person has value and needs to be welcomed and included. Anger is being misdirected towards groups of people and service providers like BC Housing and Ask Wellness, when we in fact need more resources and supporters, not less. Our point in time count shows that year after year we haven't made meaningful progress in housing the at least 200 people who are on the streets right now. We need more educators, more social workers, and more street nurses. We also need to design our civic programming to support healthy growth and development of children and families to help reduce future issues. Parks and recreation, urban nature, bike lanes, and a centre of the arts are all good ideas to work towards.