Thursday - Jan. 4, 2024 - Eight empty chairs

🌧 High 7C

Good morning!

I’ve watched a lot of hockey over the last two weeks, between the Canucks (who are good this year? Apparently!?!) and the World Juniors, on my Dad’s sports channels. We also went out and watched a game of the local Junior B team in my hometown, which is fun because the players are all great and fast but they still fall over sometimes.

But the one game I’m most excited about was a game I didn’t even get to see. I was on my way to the airport when it came on. Montreal beat Ottawa in the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s second game ever. It was even on TV. I played girl’s and women’s hockey for over a decade and I am so, so excited to see a North American pro league take off.

– Grace

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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

'People switch off the grief': Coroners' report shows grim toll on local homeless communities

A Christmas dinner at a shelter for those without homes is still a Christmas dinner. So the host stands to toast fellow diners and honour familiar faces who aren’t there to eat and enjoy the meal.

And this year, there are too many names. It’s a list. Eight people at one little shelter who will miss not only this Christmas, but every coming one.

For people who are homeless in British Columbia and the Fraser Valley, recent years have exacted a harrowing toll. Shortly before those Christmas meals, the BC Coroners Service released a report showing that 39 people without homes in Langley, Chilliwack, and Abbotsford perished in 2022. That figure represents a massive increase from seven years prior, when coroners recorded the deaths of just seven people without homes. And 2023 is likely to have been just as deadly.

• Today, Tyler writes about the increasing number of deaths among Fraser Valley residents with no place to call home, the mental toll it’s taking, and an advocate’s one-word answer to what is needed to save lives.

Related

Need to Know

➡️ BC mother who murdered daughter died in prison in Abbotsford [CTV]

🚔️ The discovery of human remains in a Langley murder case was deemed lawful [Langley Advance Times]

🏡 Two Abbotsford institutions saw big property value increases this year [Abbotsford News]

🐣 Chilliwack’s New Year’s baby arrived after 65 hours of labour [Chilliwack Progress]

📃 Abbotsford businesses have received more extortion letters as investigations across the country get underway [CTV]

🚨 A police initiative caught 36 impaired drivers and 52 excessive speeders over the last two months [Abbotsford News]

👉️ BC will appeal the $170k WorkSafeBC fine over wildfire fighting practices [Vernon Morning Star]

🚚 A BC truck driver’s organization is calling for a safety review after 30 trucks hit overpasses in the last two years [CTV]

🔥 A Chilliwack family was displaced following a fire on their home’s back porch [Chilliwack Progress]

👩‍🚒 Langley Township firefighters donated $12,000 to 12 charities [Langley Advance Times]

➡️ A Maple Ridge man is facing assault and unlawful confinement charges after an incident in Mission [Mission Record]

📻️ Tyler will be speaking about his health care spending story with CKNW radio host Simi Sara this morning around 8:15am You can listen here. 

😃 TODAY’S SMILE: Read this short fiction piece about small-town governance and wolves riding bicycles [The Walrus]

📸 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to Clarence Wiens, who was the first to correctly guess the location of yesterday’s Current Cam photo as the Best Buy in the Sevenoaks Mall in Abbotsford. (The escalators make regular appearances in music videos by local artists.)

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The Agenda

The Fraser Valley’s most valuable residential property may be set for split

The most valuable residential property in the Fraser Valley may not keep that title for much longer.

Every January, BC Assessment releases a list of the 100 most valuable residential properties in the Lower Mainland. Although most such properties are located in Vancouver and North Vancouver, four Langley Township homes made the list this year. Though most of the value comes in the form of development potential, not livability.

The most valuable home in the region this year was an acreage located at 5759 240 St. Langley. And though the five-bedroom, 7,000-square-foot home is nothing to sniff at, most of the value is linked to the ability to subdivide the 44-acre site. 

Last July, Township council heard an application to rezone the site to allow for the construction of 63 single-family homes. That proposal has yet to be approved—council decided to send the idea back to staff to reduce the number of units and improve trail connections. 

The second most valuable property is 20661 24 Ave., a seven-acre property currently occupied by a mobile home.

🗓 Things to do this week/end

🎉 Block party: Celebrate the first Friday of the new year with Mission’s monthly First Friday block party on Friday, Jan. 5. Details online.

🎸 Live music: The Stan Giles Band will play at the Elements Casino in Chilliwack on Saturday, Jan. 6. Details online.

🏒 Hockey: The Langley Rivermen will face off against the Cranbrook Bucks on Sunday, Jan. 7 at the George Preston Arena. Details online.

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Catch up

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