CRUNCH: Improving Victoria’s Downtown Core

CRUNCH is an innovative community development process which devises cooperative solutions to the problems facing Victoria”s downtown core. The city faces many challenges: fear of violence on the streets, lack of housing, poverty, poor health, increasing needs and shrinking resources. The project brings together partners from various sectors to create common vocabulary, goals and trust. It is Victoria”s unique way of developing an holistic approach to complex social problems. The author describes how the CRUNCH process relies on Action Groups to organize and implement community action plans in such areas as safety, health, housing, economic development, food security and resource-sharing.

ISBN – 1-894159-43-8