Help CRV families denied Disaster Financial Assistance

We are the community members of the Chilliwack River Valley rallying to help families in our community who really need your help! It is nearing 3 years since the Atmospheric Flood event of 2021. While most members of the Chilliwack River Valley community were blessed to have their homes and personal property spared, did you know that six families of the suffered crippling losses from this terrible and life changing event? They either lost their homes due to slide damage or the river or had their homes deemed uninhabitable. These serious and life changing climate events can happen to any of us, changing our lives in a blink of a second, leaving families such as our friends and neighbours in serious financial ruin.

That is why we have programs in our province such as Disaster Financial Assistance (DFA) and insurance. These hard-working friends and neighbours insurance was denied and they waited for over 2 ½ years working in good faith with the province being told that solutions were being worked on. Imagine their shock when they recently found out that they were turned down for DFA and the government denied them any financial assistance. This has left them in dire straits, the mental and physical stress compounded by the total financial devastation is unconscionable, again, it could happen to any one of us!

They need your help! Every time it rains the families, whose houses are deemed uninhabitable lay awake at night and wonder if they and their children will be buried alive. With mortgages to pay, their houses deemed no value and the unaffordable housing market they are stuck in an untenable nightmare situation. 2 of the houses are next to Chilliwack Lake Road, the only road in and out of the valley, the Geotech reports on those say that when (not if) the next slide comes it will be 100 metres across and 30 metres high with the high likelihood of someone being killed. If it goes over the roadway which it will if it is that size, it will be another disaster with a potential loss of life, this is where our school buses travel and residents go to and from to work, No one is listening. The FVRD Area Director has been advocating provincially and continues to do so but it appears that the residents in the Chilliwack River valley are not important enough to listen to. The community of the Chilliwack River Valley is banding together to come to these good folk’s aid and really need your help!

If you can find it in your heart to help these good folks, it would be greatly appreciated as they try to navigate next steps after being declined help by the province.

Any amount you decide to donate will be very much appreciated and will make a truly make a difference in the lives of our neighbors whose lives have been upended. Funds will be used to seek legal advice on how to move forward and any surplus will be distributed between families who have been incurring much expense due to this tragic situation.

Thank you in advance for your kind help.