- Fraser Valley Current
- Posts
- Friday - Aug. 23, 2024 - Mission shelter to accept residents in coming months
Friday - Aug. 23, 2024 - Mission shelter to accept residents in coming months
Grace Kennedy
August 23, 2024
🌦 High 22C
Good morning!
I have a record player I rarely use, although I always want to pull it out at the most inconvenient of times. I throw on a Frank, Bing, or Elvis while baking at Christmastime, which means my hands are covered in flour when it’s time to flip the vinyl. When I listen to John Denver, curious little hands want to scratch the needle across the record.
I won’t get rid of the stack of vinyl though. (In fact, I recently added Bob and Doug McKenzie to the collection.) Because someday, perhaps far in the future, I will remember to turn it on when I have the leisure to sit and listen. And by then, the kids will know to leave the music alone.
–Grace
Support local journalism by supporting The Current. Become a Current Insider member today and help bring local stories to life.
Traffic & Weather
🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope
🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.
🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.
NEWS
Extra! Extra! Get your classifieds here!
Classifieds were an important part of the news ecosystem in years gone by. The Fraser Valley Current is launching them in a new form. 📷 Feng Yu/Shutterstock
Tyler writes:
Nothing embodies a forward-thinking media operation like the introduction of a classifieds section. Which is why we’re doing it.
Seriously. The Fraser Valley Current is spiritually rooted in old-school print publications, and I’ve thought about this for years. So next month, we’re going to introduce FVC Classifieds.
The birth of Craigslist and free online classifieds section devastated the revenues of newspapers and has led to the depleted journalism landscape we know today. When I started in journalism two decades ago, small papers made millions from selling tiny ads to regular people. But as people turned to free Craigslist and Facebook ads, newspapers and journalism suffered. Fewer classifieds meant fewer people picking up their local paper to scan those classifieds. It meant less money to pay journalists, fewer stories, and declining numbers of readers. It was, and still is, a vicious circle.
We won’t be able to rebuild the classifieds of yesteryear, but we do hope we can create a feature that is interesting for readers and contributes to our publication’s long-term future. And before you start to worry about our optimism here, don’t worry. We know that it would be incredibly stupid to replicate the classifieds sections of newspapers or Craigslist.
This is how it’s going to work.
The classifieds section will appear in an unobtrusive fashion at the bottom of regular newsletters—probably on Mondays and Fridays. It will feature small 10-word notices—with links when desired—from readers. I hope readers use them to advertise garage sales and events, memorialize loved ones, post job listings, or seek out accommodations.
The feature is limited by technical and practical constraints.
The classifieds will be included in the email sent to 32,000 subscribers (and duly posted online). But you won’t be able to buy an ad to reach all those people. Instead, ads will be free, with a big catch: you will need to be an FVC Insider Member with an annual membership. If you’re a member you will get one ad per year, with your quota resetting each August 1.
(Because we sell advertisements, we can’t undercut that important part of our business model by offering unlimited ads for the cost of a single membership. That said, we might expand that one-ad limit a bit in the future. Also, if you’re a member who has paid by the month for more than a year, we’ll consider that an annual membership.)
We hope this will deliver a bonus perk for our members and incentivize more of our free subscribers to support our journalism. If all goes to plan, this will create interesting content for readers, provide value for members, and help us increase revenue that we can then plow back into journalism.
Of course, for this to work, it needs to take minimal time to manage. If the classifieds reduce the time we have to write stories, we’ll have to can the idea. So we can’t promise this feature sticks. As it is, we’re excited for it.
If you are a member and want to use your annual classified, you’ll find a link to a form below. You’ll also be able to find the link in the Insiders’ newsletter we send out every Saturday. To become an annual member and support our journalism, click here.
-Tyler
Need to Know
🚂 Trains could begin moving within days, after Canada’s labour minister sent the dispute to binding arbitration hours after the lockout began [CBC]
🥧 Aldergrove’s Hilltop Diner Café has permanently closed after 78 years in business [Aldergrove Star]
💃 Chilliwack council has asked staff to ‘be creative’ to try and keep Capella Dance Academy operating in an industrial part of town [Fraser Valley Today]
🏗 A grocery store, condos, and offices are proposed for Langley’s Fernridge neighbourhood [Langley Advance Times]
🚴♀️ A Hope cycling team has raised more than $20,000 for the upcoming Tour de Cure [Hope Standard]
🚧 Parts of Chilliwack’s Rotary Trail will be closed over the next three months for flood prevention work [City of Chilliwack/Facebook]
🦟 Mosquitoes use infrared radiation to find humans whose blood they can harvest so loose-fitting clothing works best to avoid detection [Phys.org]
🏹 A Mission archery coach is hoping to take her team to the podium at the upcoming Paralympic Games in Paris [Mission Record]
🚓 A Langley man was arrested after a driver was threatened with a gun during a road rage incident last week [Vancouver Sun]
➕ Some of BC United’s tax promises don’t hold up to scrutiny from economists [Policy Options]
🩺 The average life expectancy for Indigenous people in BC has dropped by roughly six years since 2017, a new report says [CBC]
🏠 A massive 16,000-square-foot mansion in Chilliwack has been listed for sale [Fraser Valley Today]
Enjoying our newsletter? Help us make it even better!
Become an Insider member and help keep local journalism and storytelling alive in the Fraser Valley.
SPONSORED BY YOU
Your ad can be here
Advertising in The Current is easier than ever and supports our journalism. Just shoot us an email to learn how you can advertise.
The Agenda
A new shelter in Mission is set to open soon, the province says. 📷 BC Housing
Mission shelter to accept residents in coming months
A new complex care shelter in Mission will be able to accept residents soon.
The three-storey building, located on the site of Dr. H. G. Humes Park on Hurd Street, was first announced in 2021. Its 50 studio apartments will replace 34 temporary shelter beds at the Diamond Head Motor Inn, which is set to close. (The province has said the residents there will be “supported to relocate” into new homes. But in May, there had yet to be spots lined up to accommodate those who use Diamond Head’s youth-focused beds.)
The Hurd Street building will support some people with complex care needs, and will include 12 units for people with mental-health and addiction challenges, trauma or brain injuries. Mission Community Services Society will manage the building, and staff will provide daily meals and life skills training to residents. Fraser Health will provide the complex care supports.
Construction on the project began in May 2023, after a delay due to additional environmental assessments. The shelter will receive a $1.5 million annual operating subsidy. Up to $1.1 million in additional funds will go to Fraser Health to provide the complex care services.
The province did not say exactly when the shelter would open, only that residents would be able to move in “in the coming months.”
Share
You can share this newsletter by forwarding it or copy and pasting this link—https://fvcurrent.com/p/august-23-2024—into a social media post.
Community journalism needs the entire community for it to succeed.
As part of a membership, you get our special weekend roundup of all the things you might’ve missed each week!
Classifieds
Annual FVC members can find a link to submit their annual classified in the weekly FVC Insiders Edition. Become a FVC member here.
🗓 Things to do
Community celebration: Cedarbrook Park near Chilliwack celebrates Cedarbrook Day on Sunday, Aug. 25 starting at 11am. Come for two outdoor concerts, a hypnotist, a beer garden, construction touch-a-truck, and more. Details online.
Farm market: The Mission City Farmers Market is at Centennial Park every Saturday starting at 10am. Details online.
Puppet show: The Murrayville Library hosts a puppet show today at 11am. Join Elspeth and her puppets in a rollicking tale of intrigue and adventure. Details online.
Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.
That’s it!
Thanks for reading Fraser Valley Current today ♥️
If you found something useful, consider forwarding this newsletter to another local.
And before you go, please let us know:
Reply