VANCOUVER City Council has approved $2.46 million in funding for the City’s 2023 Street Cleaning Grant Program.
Since 1999 this program has played a major role in keeping Vancouver clean by supplementing work done by City crews, and providing meaningful, low-barrier job opportunities for people who need them the most.
“We are proud to support the Street Cleaning Grant Program” said Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim. “The program not only contributes to a safer and cleaner city, but helps transform lives by providing low-threshold work to people who are typically excluded from the traditional workforce, and helps empower them to make a positive contribution to their community. We look forward to working with the grant recipients in 2023.”
Micro-cleaning is a core component of the Street Cleaning Grant Program. It involves daily collection of litter and needles on foot using brooms, shovels and wheeled carts. This work complements the street cleaning work done by City crews, which is focused on emptying waste bins and collecting litter using sweepers, flushers, or other vehicles.
Here is a summary of the positive impacts the program had in 2022:
- Micro-cleaning in an area covering 7 km2 and within 22 BIAs;
- Micro-cleaning of 25 permanent and pop-up plazas;
- 71,200 work hours to individuals with barriers to traditional employment;
- 34,000 bags of litter and 109,900 needles collected; and,
- 20,800 cumulative feces removals in the downtown area.
In total, the 2023 Street Cleaning Grant Program will provide $2.46 million in grants to the following organizations:
- United We Can – Save Our Living Environment ($469,100)
- Coast Mental Health Foundation – Employment Services Program ($735,000)
- Mission Possible Compassionate Ministries Society – MP Maintenance ($1,078,150)
- Family Services of Greater Vancouver – Street Youth Job Action ($73,100)
- The Kettle Society – SEED Employment Program ($48,800), and
- MakeWay Charitable Society – The Binners’ Project ($55,000)
