New Vancouver affordable housing connects Interior with their families

Distance can leave a void, but the newly opened affordable housing facility in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) for the Indigenous community shows how families can stay connected. The 11-storey redevelopment at Gore and Hastings Streets is the result of years of work by the First United Church Community Ministry Society (known as First United). [...]

Distance can leave a void, but the newly opened affordable housing facility in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) for the Indigenous community shows how families can stay connected. The 11-storey redevelopment at Gore and Hastings Streets is the result of years of work by the First United Church Community Ministry Society (known as First United). Serving the community for 140 years, First United’s new building offers showers, washrooms, a kitchen and dining hall, a community hub, mail and phone services, legal and tax clinics, warming and cooling centres, the area’s first women’s daytime sleeping shelter, women’s and coed drop-in spaces, a footcare program, a multifaith sacred space, and a library.

The new facility at 320 East Hastings was built to provide dignity, belonging, and justice for DTES residents. “These are people who need the most help in our society. Many of our friends and relatives live there, and it’s important they’re not pushed out.

We’re trying to address those issues and treat them as humans. They’re there because of circumstance, not choice. All my life I’ve had relatives and friends living down there – some still do, by choice or otherwise,” said David Walkem, First United board secretary.

The $94-million project was funded through First United’s $39-million capital campaign, launched in 2021, along with contributions from all three levels of government. The housing will be managed by Luma Native Housing Society. pened on June 1, the building features seven floors of 103 affordable aboriginal housing of one-bedroom and studio apartments, with community gathering spaces on every floor. “We wanted to make these housing projects homes for people, so they’re treated with dignity and respect,” Walkem said.

The exterior also incorporates Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh public art to create a more “welcoming and inclusive” space. Walkem, a former chief of Cooks Ferry Indian Band, said the effort is to ensure we are all still connected. “We want our relatives and friends living there to know that there’s connection back home.

Some of them are struggling either with mental health or addiction issues. If they want to find their way back, there’s a connection that is kept open all the time. So, when they are ready, if they want to come back home, they can.”