It’s been a little busy at RainCity Housing lately, which is strange. The so called summer months are typically quiet in our little part of the world, the onset of summer tending to slow things down a tad. Not so this year.
First up – the amazingly beautiful wall garden at Princess Rooms! We banded together with the Environmental Youth Alliance again and after some clever water engineering and some elbow grease, Princess Avenue is now that much prettier. Most of the plants are edible, and will end up in the fabulous meals provided inside via the Princess Rooms meal program. Never mind a 100 mile diet – this is a 100 meter one! Oh, and we’re working hard with our partners at Hollyburn Properties to make sure this will be a sustainable project.
Second – The Scotia Bank Half Marathon. You’d think spending a few hours at a booth in Stanley Park would be boring. You’d be wrong. The first runners crossed the finish line before the commentators were even ready. After that it was one big endorphin high that permeated the booth village. People refuelling on bananas and cookies, asking with sincere interest “What does RainCity do?” or “What you guys do is great! Keep it up!” Check out the pics on our facebook page. We can’t wait to participate again next year, and Bill, our communications guy, says he’s doing the half. We’ll hold ‘em to it.
Last and definitely not least – the 215 West 2nd Ground Breaking! Where else can you experience a Coast Salish blessing, shovels, hard hats, speeches from Minister Rich Coleman, Mayor Gregor Robertson and other dignitaries, and live music? At a RainCity Housing Ground Breaking.
This particular ground breaking was extra special as we’re partnering with Katherine Sanford Housing Society. We like partnerships, as they go a long way in making communities stronger.
BC Housing will be providing the bricks and mortar monies and some staffing monies, the City of Vancouver provides the property, and Vancouver Coastal Health will be providing staffing monies as well. You can read the Vancouver Courier article, or the 24 article, or visit our facebook page to see photos (we hope you ‘like’ them) and the video generously shared by BC Housing.
Now that we’ve checked all those off the ‘to do’ list, what’s next?
Last week the preliminary numbers were released from the Metro Vancouver Homeless Count 2011, and if you haven’t already heard there were a number of surprises. For the first time since the count began in 2002 there was a decrease, albeit a small one, in the overall numbers (1%) and a big decrease in unsheltered homeless (54%), but an increase in homeless youth (almost 30%). Our Associate Director Sean Spear spoke on CBC’s BC Almanac about the count and what we experience at RainCity.
So why the changes? Well, the easy part to explain is there were just more spaces inside than during the last count. For the last three years RainCity Housing has provided temporary shelters in three different neighbourhoods intentionally outside Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in order to address the homeless populations in those neighbourhoods and with much success. Hundreds of the individuals staying at these shelters went on to find permanent housing. Many people were coming inside for the first time in years.
The majority of the people staying at our shelter near Granville Street were under 30, and many of those were even younger. The count is getting more sophisticated in terms of connecting with youth, but we are also seeing more people under25 accessing our services and housing, and feeling more comfortable doing so, and therefore more visible for the count.
And the small decrease in over homeless numbers? The City and the Province have been actively creating purpose built housing throughout Vancouver, with about 1500 units completed and over another 1000 coming online over the next 2 to 3 years. Our Housing First ACT Team and the rest of the At Home/Chez Soi program provides subsidies for 200 people so they can afford to live anywhere in the city, not just the Downtown Eastside. The fact that the number hasn’t increased is an amazing sign, as the overall population has increased by 8% since the last count, and the counts done in 2005 and 2008 found large increases in the homeless population (thanks, Frances!).
But it’s important to remember that:
Researchers say the actual numbers can be up to three times as high as the snapshot 24 hour count, due to people staying with relatives, couch surfing or just really hard to find.
Women are still the invisible homeless, where the actual numbers aren’t accurate as there are still many barriers.
Can we collectively pat ourselves on the back? Yes. Nonprofits, the City and the Province, and organizations like Streetohome have made huge steps the right direction. But there’s still a lot more work to be done. Not only is more affordable and supported housing still needed, as a society we need to look at why homelessness is an issue and continue to find solutions until the day there really is a home for every person.
Tell what you think a solution to end homelessness could be.
Sean Spear, one of our Associate Directors was interviewed by Pivot and the podcast is now available at Rabble, a website that provides ‘news for the rest of us’. Sean talks about the closure of our three temporary shelters, and how important shelters can be as the first step towards long term housing. Have a listen.
And look (and listen) for upcoming podcasts here at ‘What’s New’, interviews of staff, other service providers and the amazing folks we get to work with.
What are they teaching kids in school these days? Would you believe me if I told you they might be learning about social awareness and how to give back to the community? It’s true! The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative, or YPI, has been part of the high school curriculum (usually grade ten) here in Canada for a number of years now, and is also taught in the UK and the US.
Here’s how it works. Students work together in groups to find out the diverse social needs of their community and then select a social need that they are passionate about. They research local, grassroots, social providers whose aim is to help members of the community faced with that specific need, and then pick one charity they feel is having a positive impact on the community.
Once the research is complete, groups do a short presentation on their charity and how a grant would help it better serve its clients. A group from each class is chosen to conduct a final presentation in front of their entire school and a judging panel, most of whom are fellow students. Finally, the team with the most compelling presentation wins a $5,000 grant which is awarded directly to the chosen charity.
So each term we get a few groups of students calling and wanting to find out what we do at RainCity Housing. And every time it’s a new experience for me and I never grow tired of it, as each group has different ideas and ways of expressing them. Some want to interview our staff on video, some want to visit our different sites, but all of these amazing students are genuinely curious about how we can end homelessness and what can be actually done. When I was 15, I hadn’t even heard of the term homelessness, let alone want to do something about it.
Then the day came when I got a phone call from some very excited students. They had me on speaker phone and they were all talking at once, but it was easy it make out “We won! We won!” as all three took turns saying it. They also kept thanking me and RainCity Housing. “But you guys did all the work,” I said. “It was your presentation that won!”
Still, they thanked me once more, and invited me to their school to watch their presentation to the rest of the school staff.
Alina, Allie and Mathew from Cariboo Secondary School, Burnaby, BC with their $5000 cheque!
Sadly, not every group of students will be able to win $5000 for their chosen charity. But we’re all the wealthier for it because of the change that can take place. Because real change takes place when people of any age start to find out what role they can play in dispelling myths, learning about homelessness (in this instance), and sharing that information with family and friends.
A few weeks ago there was an article in the Vancouver Courier that referenced our Transitional Housing Program for Women, the Vivian, saying “…the Vivian symbolizes unintended exploitation.”
The Vivian staff shared this article with the women living at the Vivian, because it was important to find out what they thought and if they wanted to share their side of the story. The women living at the ‘Viv’ arranged a meeting to express their concerns about the article, and two of the women decided to write letters to the editor, one of which was edited and published. You can read the scanned letter in its entirety here.
Here is the unpublished letter that was dictated to a Vivian staff member:
Dear Courier:
My name is Shannon, I’m 25, I moved into the Vivian just before Christmas and that would have been my first Christmas that I got gifts and got experience a Christmas for the first time in my whole life.
I got onto the methadone program here and I see my son every Saturday, something I wasn’t able to do this before. I enjoy getting to be a mum for my son. The staff give me the extra encouragement to stay healthy and get stable, get on methadone so I can be stable enough to see my son once a week.
This place done a lot of good for me. I’ve learned to be a better person and be more stable. I actually have a home. I’m learning how to do things that I couldn’t do before. For one, I’m learning job-training skills. I’m learning how to be more independent and interact with people. I’m learning a lot about respecting others and that we all live here and work together. This is our home. It’s a safe place for all of us. If we didn’t have this here we wouldn’t have nothing. It’s a very positive place.
I feel like I have more self-esteem. I know what it’s like to be cared about and wanted. To feel safe and that I have my own home, because this is my home. The staff come here everyday to help out one-on-one. People are not living here in a hotel, it’s a home.
I think it’s great to have the support of the staff. I really like the art that we do and all the activities. We have fun and just get to relax.
It’s a really good place. I’ve told other friends I know who are unsafe to live here. It’s a place that I would recommend to people. It gives you a chance to know what success feels like. You don’t feel put down or shut out.
Shannon G
Not only do women living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside need to have safe, supported housing, they need to have their voices heard. Thank you Laura Anne and Shannon for sharing your stories. And thank you for taking the time to listen.
I put off writing a blog post until today, and then found out that today is International Procrastination Day. Too easy to use as another excuse, but I finally pushed through. That I’m actually writing a blog at all (and you’re hopefully reading) is because our organisation wants to participate in social media in its various forms.
On Wednesday I went to the 2nd ever East Van ‘Tweetup’ and was amazed by a number of things:
• the variety of people there
• how friendly everyone was towards each other
• how intense and passionate the conversations became
It could have been any neighbourhood, any theme, but what was really amazing was how strong the sense community felt in the room – strange, because many had never met before. And that’s the point. Social media often gets a bad rap as it’s still viewed as a one way conversation, ‘Follow me! Like me! But I may not like you back…’, and it’s not face to face. But there we were, face to face, talking passionately about the arts, homelessness, community – all there because of social media.
The 2nd Annual Vancouver Twestival took place last night and the who’s who of Vancouver’s twitterverse came out to play for a good cause. And while RainCity Housing wasn’t able to be there, it was easy to get a sense of the fun and camaraderie that took place by using social media. And over $8000 was raised for a local nonprofit, Beauty Night. Why blog about a different nonprofit? Because social media is about sharing; sharing ideas, sharing information, and sharing support for each other.
Do you think social media can strengthen traditional communities? Or bring like minded people together in person to support ideas and raise awareness of important issues?
At 9am this morning our Homeless Outreach Program (HOP) Team began the last shift of this year’s Metro Vancouver Homeless Count. It started last night at midnight and before that numbers were being tallied at our permanent and temporary shelters. This year the count will also include people with no fixed address staying in hospital, jail and other transitional services.
Our HOP Team is a provincially funded program that started in 2006. The team literally reaches out, finding people sleeping in the rough, living outside for a variety of reasons, from not feeling safe at a shelter, to having pets. When it was below freezing last month I asked Jesse, a member of the team, if they saw more or less people sleeping outside. The answer surprised me.
“The weather has less to do with it now,” Jesse said. “People are more connected to services than before and have access to low barrier shelters, so we don’t see nearly as many people in the rough now. Most of our referrals lately have been folks that can’t afford their rent any more.”
While the face of homelessness may be changing, we think our low barrier shelters and HOP team are making a difference. What do you think?
Throughout the world today, thousands of events are taking place where women (and men) are celebrating, protesting, and in many cases both, about what has changed and what has stayed the same for women’s equality.
I know you have read or heard that in so many ways women are still not treated equally – salaries, political positions, property ownership. But did you know this inequity even exists in homelessness? Women are often the ‘unseen’ homeless population, couch surfing, staying with relatives, and when they do stay at shelters, it’s usually a much shorter stay than men.
In 2004 RainCity Housing opened the Vivian Transitional Housing Program for Women, the first of its kind in Vancouver. A first because it was the only ‘Women Only’ program that used a Housing First approach, and provided a safe and supportive place where women with long histories of living on the street came inside (some for the first time), stayed as long as they needed, and felt that the unique challenges they faced were finally recognized and addressed.
Fast forward 7 years and The ‘Viv’ is a vibrant, tight community of women who support each other and learn from each other. Each woman leaves the program when they’re ready to do so, but the relationships they build there last a life time.
How are you recognizing International Women’s Day? What have you seen change or stay the same for women’s equality?
Hello friends, tweeps, and social media aficionados!
Welcome to the newest part of RainCity Housing’s website. It’s a blog, it’s a news feed, it’s upcoming events – it’s just a better way to stay in touch. Some of the items below this post you’ve probably seen before, but now it’s incredibly easy to share anything here with your friends.
And tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you didn’t know, and what you’d like to know about homelessness and how RainCity Housing is working towards the day there’ll be a home for every person. Ask us questions, suggest blog topics, or let us know about other great content out there.
So what do you think? Comment on any of these posts, links or videos and we’ll be sure to reply. There’ll be new content every week, and we’ll even have a guest blogger or two.
And you can now follow us on Twitter or become a fan of our Facebook page.
It’s finally getting cold and CTV spoke with one of our Associate Directors, Sean Spear, about how RainCity Housing’s shelters are responding to freezing levels.
RainCity Housing and Support Society
191 Alexander Street
Vancouver BC
Canada V6A 1B8
Phone: 604.662.7023
Fax: 604.254.3703
Email: info@raincityhousing.org
