Resources

A message from the FIRST UNITED Social Justice Committee

You’ve helped us advocate for issues that affect the community we serve in the Downtown Eastside, including affordable housing and safe supply. Thank you for using your voices to push for change.

The next step you can take is to vote in the upcoming Vancouver by-election, happening on April 5. With important issues on the line, the stakes are high.

Voting is one of the most impactful ways to make a difference in your community. Right now, there has never been a more important time to exercise your democratic rights. FIRST UNITED has been serving the DTES community, including those who live in poverty, have mental health challenges, and people who use drugs, for over a century. Elections are a way to stand up for our community on the issues that impact people directly.

In this by-election, you’ll be voting to fill two vacant City Council seats. Get informed about each candidate and where they stand on issues that are important to you. Read more about each candidate by clicking the links provided here.

Ahead of the by-election, there are still a few all-candidate meetings happening in the city in case you haven’t had a chance to attend yet:

• Sunday, March 30 at 1:30pm-3:00pm at St. James Community Square regarding the Jericho Lands ODP
• Tuesday, April 1 from 7:00pm-9:00pm at Kerrisdale Community Centre Association

Make sure to ask questions about their stances on:

• Supportive housing and plans for more affordable housing in Vancouver.
• The Downtown Eastside and creating safety and dignity for those experiencing homelessness and poverty.
• The toxic drug supply and our need for increased investment in harm reduction and safe supply.
• Reconciliation, Indigenous rights and prioritizing Indigenous voices.

Your vote is important and will influence the future of the city. Thank you.

The FIRST UNITED Social Justice Committee
Jerome Bonneric
Jean Budden
Heather Clarke
Elizabeth KerklaanKatie Koncan
Marcia Lopez
Chris Wrightson

Mayor Ken Sim wants to stop new supportive housing projects from being built in the City of Vancouver. On Wednesday, February 26, the motion “Temporarily Pausing Net-New Supportive Housing Investments in Vancouver to Prioritize Replacing Existing Stock and Promoting Regional Equity” is going to City Council for discussion and vote. This is an opportunity for your voice to be heard on an important issue that will impact thousands in our community, and we need you to join us.

The City of Vancouver acknowledges that “safe, stable and dignified housing is a fundamental necessity for individuals facing homelessness, mental health challenges, and substance use disorders”. As homelessness increases and affordability worsens, now is not the time to inhibit the building of new supportive housing stock. 

Supportive housing makes communities safer. 
Supportive housing is part of the solution to homelessness. 
Supportive housing helps people escape the cycle of poverty. 

Send a pre-written email below to tell Mayor Sim and City Council that you DO NOT support this motion. Tell them that you believe Vancouver and surrounding municipalities in the region need to proactively and urgently build more supportive housing. 

Read more about the issue and the benefits of supportive housing in our op-ed “Safer Communities Start with Supportive Housing”, co-written with the Vancity Community Foundation. 

If you do not see the form to send your letter, please refresh your browser.

Urge party leaders to adopt a position supportive of vacancy control and develop a bolder plan to ensure tenants aren’t evicted in bad faith.

BC tops two undesirable lists: the eviction capital of Canada and the most unaffordable housing in Canada. Rent is out of control, but it doesn’t have to be. FIRST UNITED is a provincial leader in housing justice. Through our extensive research and expertise we have developed a comprehensive law reform platform that protects tenants, reduces community displacement, and prevents homelessness. Earlier in 2024, the provincial government adopted several of FIRST UNITED’s recommendations. However, one recommendation that has not yet been accepted is vacancy control. Vacancy control has the potential to make the greatest impact for the most people in BC.

Vacancy control is when the allowable annual rent increases apply to the rental unit, regardless of a change of landlord or tenant. Right now, landlords are strongly incentivized to evade rent control by forcing tenant turnover through bad-faith evictions. Through evictions, landlords can increase rent by unlimited amounts. We see this happen across the province. Seniors, people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and low-income people are at highest risk of homelessness and displacement through these bad-faith evictions, but people of all walks of life and incomes are negatively impacted.

Vacancy control will disincentivize that. It will stabilize rents and prevent people from all walks of life from becoming homeless. This is what’s needed.

Send a letter to provincial party leaders to let them know that you will vote for a party that demonstrates commitment to safe and affordable homes for everyone. The letter will be addressed to:

1. Premier David Eby, BC NDP
2. John Rustad, Conservative Party of BC
3. Sonia Furstenau, Green Party of BC

This letter writing campaign is now closed. As of October 29, 2024, a total of 99 letters were sent to Premier David Eby (BC NDP), John Rustad (Conservative Party of BC), and Sonia Furstenau (Green Party of Canada). Below are the contents of the original letter:

Dear Party Leader,

BC is the eviction capital and the least affordable province for housing in Canada. Housing affordability is out of control and we need clear and bold action now.

I believe in housing policy that allows for everyone to have access to a safe and affordable home. I will vote for a party that demonstrates that commitment in the upcoming election.

That’s why I’m calling on your party to adopt a position supportive of vacancy control and develop a bolder plan to ensure tenants aren’t evicted in bad faith.

Right now, landlords are strongly incentivized to evade rent control by forcing tenant turnover through bad-faith evictions. Through evictions, landlords can increase rent by unlimited amounts. We see this happen across the province. Seniors, people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and low-income people are at highest risk of homelessness and displacement through these bad-faith evictions, but people of all walks of life and incomes are negatively impacted.

Vacancy control will disincentivize that. It will stabilize rents and prevent people from all walks of life from becoming homeless. This is what’s needed.

People across the province and income spectrum are struggling to pay rent. We need immediate action now.

Sincerely,
[Name]

Calendar

This winter season, you’re invited to join us for justice-focused Advent & Christmas. The Spiritual Care team has put together an Advent & Christmas Calendar, focused on Indigenous Housing Justice. Together, we’ll learn how racism, colonization, and housing systems in Vancouver/the unceded and ancestral lands of the Xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) contribute to injustice and oppression, and what actions we can take to pursue justice.

The calendar runs from December 1 to January 5 and features daily actions that we can participate in alongside each other. This important work is part of our commitment to putting reconciliation into action and advocating for Indigenous Housing Justice.

Advent and Christmas Calendar 2024:

Advent and Christmas Calendar 2024

We hope you’ll join us in participating in these daily actions. Every Sunday from December 1 to January 5, Rev. Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain (Prairie Band Potawatomi/mshkodeni bodéwadminwen, Kickapoo Nation of Kansas/kiikaapoa, African American/Black), will share a video relating to week’s Advent theme and the calendar’s calls to action.

Advent Videos by Rev. Lauren Sanders:

Week 1: Hope

Week 2: Peace

Week 3: Joy

Week 4: Love

Week 5: Truth

Week 6: Wisdom

Lent is a time of prayer and fasting and a time to explore new spiritual practices. One of the most basic spiritual practices that humanity has is our feelings and emotions.

To help us explore and work through complex emotions that accompany grief, Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, is hosting an art challenge for the Lenten season.

You’re invited to join in this weekly practice as Lauren shares her own painting process and guides us through some “wondering questions” around grief. Feel free to comment your answers to the questions. You can also share your painting on social media with the hashtag #PourOutGrief.

All videos will be posted here. Check back every Wednesday to see the latest one!

Week 1: Grief

Week 2: Denial, Shock, Numbness

Week 3: Pain, Guilt and Shame

Week 5: Isolation, Loneliness and Processing

Week 6: Testing

Week 7: Acceptance

Calendar

This Christmas season, you’re invited to join us for a justice-themed Advent. The Spiritual Care team has put together an Advent Calendar to help us start the work of Call for Justice 18.17 from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Call 18.17 states: “We call upon all governments, service providers, and educators to fund and support the re-education of communities and individuals who have learned to reject 2SLGBTQQIA people, or who deny their important history and contemporary place within communities and in ceremony, and to address transphobia and homophobia in communities (for example, with anti-transphobia and anti homophobia programs), to ensure cultural access for 2SLGBTQQIA people.”

Advent and Christmas Calendar 2023:

Advent and Christmas Calendar 2023

The calendar runs from December 3 to January 5 and features daily actions to help us along the journey to fulfilling Call 18.17. This important work is part of our commitment to putting reconciliation into action and advocating for justice for MMIWG and 2SLGBTQQIA.

Please join us by participating in these daily actions. Each Friday, Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain (Prairie Band Potawatomi/mshkodeni bodéwadminwen, Kickapoo Nation of Kansas/kiikaapoa, African American/Black), will host a Zoom session (link in the calendar) to provide a safe space for deeper discussions.

Learn more about why this Call for Justice is important.

You may also want to download our Advent and Christmas Liturgy for this year.

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Toast Talks March 2025

Here is the digital version of the of our 2024 Annual Report:

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Toast Talks November 2024

Here is the digital version of the fall edition of our First Things First newsletter below:

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Here is the digital version of the summer edition of our First Things First newsletter below:

Rev. Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, has written a blog in honour of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Rev. Sanders shares about the truth-telling and truth-listening aspects of truth and reconciliation, and how art—one of the key forms of communication—requires everyone to be a truth-listener.

Art is storytelling, and art is one of the oldest forms of truth that there is. We see art everywhere. When there are archeological digs or when you’re in Indigenous sacred spaces, there’s art. That art is telling a story, and that story tells the truth.  

When we are journeying on this truth and reconciliation journey, it is vital that we look at songs, dances, and all art forms as part of ways to speak truth, hear truth, learn truth, unlearn truths that we don’t need anymore, unlearn lies, and relearn truths that we’ve forgotten about. 

Truth-telling and truth-listening happen together in an open dialog. The truth hits hard, shining light on places within us and around us that we would rather not see or be seen. Allowing those hard truths to confront the lies we have believed takes humility, self-awareness, and courage. As we work to fully accept those hard truths, we realize that telling the truth is also very difficult. Telling hard truths also requires humility, self-awareness, and courage. The vulnerability of both the truth-teller and the truth-accepter is the beginning of trust. Only from that trust can reconciliation be built. 

When we experience art, we have feelings about it. Feelings are the deepest and first way we encounter what we think of as spirit. Our body reacts, our mind reacts, and everything within us reacts when we feel feeling. With art, you’re supposed to feel feeling. That art tells us: this is the artist’s truth. You can like it; you can not like it. You can feel some way about it. But that was the point of the artwork. To feel some way about it. 

When we encounter the hard truths from artwork, particularly Indigenous artwork, we all need to give ourselves space to internalize it and have it become a vital part of us in a way that allows the truth to become ours. The story isn’t to be usurped or subsumed. The truth in the story becomes our common humanity, our connection that breathes solidarity into being… again. In some creation stories, we were all one. We became fractured into “I only” through colonization, systemic oppression, and genocide. Listening to hard truths, whether through art or other means, moves us toward each other. 

This National Truth and Reconciliation Day, I invite you to join us in reflection with the following questions: 

When you’re looking at public art, what do you feel? What are some hard truths? What are the lies you believed? 

Casey Stainsby, Student Pastor, and Rev. Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, hand-painted a maple tree at the FIRST UNITED Spiritual Care office. The tree will be adorned with paper maple leaves designed by FIRST UNITED staff. On each maple leaf, staff wrote a commitment to dignity, belonging, and justice for truth and reconciliation.

“There’s no limits to what could happen with the money,” said a City Councillor recently.

Oh goodness, don’t we know it.

The City is exploring the idea of selling naming rights of parks and public spaces to corporations in an effort to reduce a $500 million infrastructure deficit.

In a world where we’re constantly bombarded with advertising and branding, and massive corporations are constantly vying for our eyes, do we really need to let that infiltrate BC’s natural beauty and public spaces?

But more than that, this initiative appears to be at odds with reconciliation…The City is proposing further profiting from the possession of stolen lands. The City was designated a “City of Reconciliation” in 2014. We invite staff, Councillors, and the Mayor alike to reflect on what selling naming rights for stolen lands means in this context. Is selling the naming rights to stolen lands based in reconciliation?

Look, we understand the need to pay for things. And we understand the benefits to partnering with the corporate sector to achieve goals. And as such, we’d like to offer some insight and constructive feedback to our public sector colleagues on the issue.

We’re currently redeveloping our site into an 11-storey purpose-built facility with four floors of community services and seven floors of affordable housing for Indigenous people (operated by Lu’ma Native Housing Society). The price tag for our four floors of services: a whopping $37 million, of $92 million for the whole building.

FIRST UNITED isn’t a massive organization; our operating budget just crept over $5 million this year. We’re well underway with our fundraising efforts for our new building, but that doesn’t detract from how ambitious it is for an organization of our size.

But we made a deliberate choice when we launched our capital campaign: We chose to not sell naming rights to rooms, spaces, or the building itself. This is actually highly unusual in the fundraising and philanthropic space.

All of the spaces in our new building will be named after Indigenous and spiritual roots of the land and Indigenous leaders rather than donors. And because we know that recognition can be meaningful, instead of naming rights, donors have the opportunity to offer dedications for the spaces they help to fund. But those rooms will be known by their Indigenous-based name first, not by the dedication. And that makes a big difference.

For us, this dedication policy is a core component to putting reconciliation in action.

The neighbourhood we serve is comprised of about 30-40% Indigenous People. The soil we’ve built into is stolen, never-ceded, ancestral land that is not ours. To create a space that is grounded in dignity, belonging, and justice, we decided that it was more important to recognize and honour the history of the land than the names of corporations or wealthy donors.

Our relationship with Indigenous Peoples and our journey through and to reconciliation are more important than money. These are our values, and we’re choosing to live them, regardless of the expense. We believe it is possible to have your actions align with your values, especially when it comes to managing your pocketbook.

We invite the City to reflect on their values regarding the allocation of existing funds. We continue to see the Mayor’s office and Vancouver Police Department’s budgets climb without issue or much in the way of “creative” fundraising. It just happens. It’s dismaying that our public spaces—and opportunities for righting wrongs of colonialism—not given the same type of prioritization for a City of Reconciliation.

Be brave, City of Vancouver. Take a note out of our playbook. Live the values you say you have. And if nothing else, it might not be a great look for your sponsors as you evict houseless residents from these newly-renamed parks.

June 21 marks National Indigenous People’s Day, when we celebrate the history and culture of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people across Canada. To mark the day, we’ve compiled a number of resources and activities to get involved with to celebrate and for you to advance your own learning about Indigenous people.

Events

• National Indigenous People’s Day Celebration at Grandview Park
  June 21, 12:00 – 4:00 pm
  FIRST UNITED will have a booth set up, stop by to say hello and hear what we’re up to!
  
• Block Party on Main Street, between East Hastings and East Pender
  June 21, 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
  Pop up performances from J.B. the First Lady, Mannix, Haida Dance Group, and more
  
• DTES Powwow at Oppenheimer Park
  June 23, 12:00 – 5:00 pm

Reading

FIRST UNITED staff have been encouraged to read the following books by First Nations authors to understand the history and context of colonization in Canada. We highly encourage you to read these important texts:

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Robert P.C. Joseph

Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls, by Angela Sterritt

Local Businesses

Support local Indigenous-owned businesses today and every day.

Massy Books, https://www.massybooks.com/, 229 E Georgia St, Vancouver
All of the above books are available at Massy Books

Decolonial Clothing, https://decolonialclothing.com/, 269 E Georgia St, Vancouver

Talaysay Tours, https://www.talaysay.com/, various tour locations in Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, and Squamish