Merritt Community Resilience Framework

September 11, 2026

Building a More Resilient Community Together

The City of Merritt is facilitating the development of a community-driven resilience framework.

The framework will help community partners, service organizations and local businesses better understand resilience and identify the strengths and opportunities that can help Merritt navigate sudden events, ongoing stresses and other pressures. It will be a key tool to help unlock partnerships, funding and grant opportunities as we work together to enhance our community’s resilience.

What is Community Resilience?

Community resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from environmental, economic and social challenges.

Resilience involves planning and working together:

• Before an event: focusing on prevention, risk reduction and protection
• During an event: maintaining essential services and providing immediate safety
• After an event: supporting recovery, restoration and long-term community wellbeing

Resilience is broader than emergency response or physical infrastructure.

It includes all of us: organizations who provide services and work to address ongoing challenges such as housing affordability, health care access and employment supports; local businesses who are critical to contributing to jobs, economic growth and sustainability; and regional partners who rely on each other for critical services, infrastructure and programmes.

What is a Resilience Framework?

A resilience framework is a shared tool that provides a common language and structure for understanding resilience in Merritt.

The Merritt Resilience Framework considers four interconnected areas:

• People and Community
• Prosperity
• Place
• Preparedness

Together, these areas will help community partners:

• Identify opportunities
• Collaborate and identify priorities
• Guide planning and access funding

Understanding Merritt’s Resilience Framework

Watch this short video to learn about the four parts of the Merritt Resilience Framework and how the framework can help identify opportunities, support collaboration and guide community planning.

Why is Merritt developing this framework?

The framework will build on Merritt’s experience of the 2021 flood, as well as other historical experiences the community has navigated together. Work is underway to review and coordinate what has already been completed and integrate past research and planning into a resilience framework.

How the Framework is Being Developed

The City is facilitating this community-driven initiative with funding from the Canadian Red Cross. Together, we are bringing community partners, service organizations and local businesses together to help inform how the Merritt Resilience Framework can serve the entire community.

In September 2026, invited organizations and partners will participate in facilitated workshops and interviews. These conversations will help the project team:

• Identify existing strengths, assets, and initiatives that contribute to resilience in Merritt
• Better understand gaps and opportunities
• Identify potential priorities, projects and initiatives
• Explore where different organizations could lead or contribute
• Consider how the framework can support collaboration and community-led action

separate and complementary First Nations engagement approach will be developed collaboratively with First Nations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the framework only about emergency response?

No. Emergency response is one part of community resilience. The framework will also consider how Merritt prepares before an event, maintains essential services during an event and supports recovery and long-term community wellbeing afterward. What’s the more the framework will look at how the community can address chronic challenges that erode our resilience so we can be proactive in investing in projects and initiatives that make us stronger in the future.

Is this a City plan?

No. The City is facilitating the development of the framework, but it is intended to be a community-driven initiative and a shared community resource.

Community partners, service organizations, local businesses, local government and First Nation Communities all have roles in strengthening community resilience.

What will the framework include?

The Merritt Resilience Framework is organized around four interconnected areas: People and Community, Prosperity, Place and Preparedness.

The framework will help identify Merritt’s existing strengths, gaps and opportunities; support collaboration and priority-setting; and guide planning and access to funding.

Who is being invited to participate?

The engagement process will include community organizations, partners, service providers and local businesses from a range of sectors, including:

• First Nations, Indigenous governments and Indigenous-serving organizations
• Health, mental health, addictions and community wellbeing
• Social supports, housing and income support
• Education, youth and family services
• Emergency management, public safety and crisis response
• Local and regional government
• Infrastructure, utilities, the environment and watershed management
• Business and economic development
• Community and volunteer organizations
• Services supporting seniors and people at greater risk during disruptions
• Agriculture, ranching, land stewardship and food systems

How will First Nations be engaged?

A separate and complementary First Nations engagement will be developed collaboratively with First Nations to support this work and will be guided by shared and overlapping interests related to resilience.

How will partner input be used?

Input will help the project team:

• Develop an inventory of existing strengths, assets and initiatives
• Identify opportunities to improve community resilience
• Map potential projects, initiatives and contributors
• Understand how different sectors and organizations could contribute
• Refine and advance the Community Resilience Framework

When will the framework be completed?

The work is expected to be completed by December 2026.

The engagement process may be paused, modified, or rescheduled if a natural disaster or another event negatively affects Merritt.