Join us as we commemorate the National Memorial Day for Persons Experiencing Homelessness. Held annually on the winter solstice and the longest night of the year, National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember those we have lost too early due to the effects of homelessness. Councilor Krista Loughton will be in attendance to make the proclamation for Victoria, as Acting Mayor.
As the holiday season approaches, the Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region is excited to share a list of holiday meals from organizations across Victoria!
View the holiday meals graphic here, or take a look at the list:
December 8 | 11:30am – 12:30pm, Salvation Army ARC (525 Johnson St.), Community Christmas Dinner
December 12 | 12:00pm – 2:00pm, Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness, (Downtown Community Centre 755 Pandora Ave.), Turkey Lunch & Drumming
December 16 | 12:00pm – 3:00pm, Mustard Seed (@ Bay Street Armoury– 715 Bay St.), Christmas Community Luncheon
December 20 | 12:00pm – 1:30pm, Our Place Society (919 Pandora Ave.), Turkey Lunch
December 21 | 5:00pm – 6:30pm, Our Place Society (919 Pandora Ave.), Dodd’s Turkey Dinner
December 21 | 3:00pm – 6:00pm, Alliance Club – Youth Empowerment Society, (533 Yates St. – Back alley entrance), Turkey Dinner & Gifts *For youth ages 13-19*
December 25 | 8:00am – 10:00am, The Soup Kitchen (740 View St.), Christmas Soup
December 25 | 12:00pm – 2:30pm, St. Andrew’s Kirk Hall (680 Courtney St.), Recovery Christmas Dinner
The Face 2 Face with Stigma workshop is once again available for booking! This pioneering team paints the reality of facing stigma in their unique, highly sought after, workshop. Face 2 Face with Stigma is an anti-stigma workshop that is inspired, led, developed, and delivered entirely by people with lived experience of substance use, mental health disorders and homelessness. Together, we use our powerful stories to inspire empathy and compassion, educate and reduce fear in the community.
Saturday, September 30th is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We invite you to support our Indigenous family by wearing an orange shirt to remember the children and the survivors of residential schools and show our support for their families and their communities.
To walk together in a good way towards Reconciliation, we must recognize and commemorate this sorrowful part of our history and the intergenerational trauma caused by the residential schools’ legacy.
The Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region will continue to stand with our Indigenous family to address the current day injustices against Indigenous peoples locally, provincially, nationally and beyond.
Our dear partners at Mental Health Recovery Partners South Island will be hosting a fundraiser on November 11, 2023.
Event & sponsorship info: https://firstimpress.ca/a-night-of-white-2023
Ticket purchase & auction platform: https://hibid.ca/events/a-night-of-white-for-mental-health-2023
Come out to support this great cause.
The United Way Southern Vancouver Island launches its campaign. We encourage our community to continue to show their generosity as those contributions are re-invested in community to help those who need it most.
Victoria, BC (August 15, 2023) – A network of local social service agencies is pulling out all the stops as they prepare to host Project Reconnect 2023, a one-day event that provides local community members experiencing homelessness and poverty with access to free services, resources, and referrals.
Project Reconnect takes place on Tuesday, August 22, from 11:00 am – 2:30 pm, at Royal Athletic Park (RAP), 1014 Caledonia Ave.
The Downtown Service Providers (DSP) Committee, which organizes the annual event, envisions it as a one-day, one-stop annual service fair for community members.
“It’s also a day of shared conversation, learning, fellowship, delicious food, and entertainment,” says Andrew Holeton, Director of Collaborative Engagement & Impact at the Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region, a member organization of the DSP Committee. “It’s an easy-going environment where service providers and those people with lived experience can share information and connect—or reconnect.”
More than 40 different service providers will be on hand, providing free services like medical care, ID replacement, haircuts, foot care, veterinary help, and more. In bringing together so many service providers in one space, organizers hope that attendees will have the opportunity to find out who can help, no matter the situation they’re in.
Organizers have ensured a bus will follow a route throughout Victoria, stopping at hubs to pick up attendees and transport them safely to RAP. Each of the estimated 200-300 people who attend Project Reconnect will enjoy a community lunch, prepared by The Mustard Seed Street Church, with other food giveaways throughout the day.
The first iteration of Project Connect (as the project was originally called) took place in Victoria in 2008, and was based on an initiative developed by United Way Worldwide.
Project Reconnect is supported by United Way Southern Vancouver Island (UWSVI) and the Victoria Labour Council.
More information about Project Reconnect, including links to opportunities to donate, set up a booth, or volunteer at the event, is available at victoriahomelessness.ca/take-action/project-reconnect-2023/.
Media are welcome to attend Project Reconnect.
About the DSP
The Downtown Service Providers Committee comprises service providers operating in Victoria’s downtown core, or serving populations in the downtown core, who have met monthly since 2002 to share information, coordinate activities, and develop collaborative strategies to address the needs in the downtown core. Membership includes representatives of service delivery organizations, city council, city staff, police, and local businesses, as well as funding, advocacy, and social policy agencies.
About United Way Southern Vancouver Island
For 85 years, United Way Southern Vancouver Island (UWSVI) has served the local community and remains dedicated to supporting people in areas where they need it most. We believe everyone in the Greater Victoria region, which includes 13 municipalities and 11 First Nations and the Southern Gulf Islands, should have the opportunity to reach their potential. Last year, UWSVI supported close to 63,000 individuals on Southern Vancouver Island in building better lives. That is almost one in six people in our region being helped by a United Way Southern Vancouver Island initiative or funded program.
MEDIA CONTACT
Erik Lambertson
Director, Marketing + Communications
United Way Southern Vancouver Island
Office: 250.984.2269 ext. 265
erik.lambertson@uwsvi.ca
On the night of March 11, 2020, and throughout the following day, the Community Social Planning Council, with support from the Capital Regional District, the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness and many volunteers, will conduct the bi-annual Point-in-Time (PiT) Homeless Count and Survey.
Over a 24 hour period, trained volunteers will count and survey individuals who are staying in shelters, short-term housing, and sleeping rough (without shelter). Our PiT Count survey will provide a “snapshot” of homelessness in the region and important information that improves our understanding of the needs and circumstances of the people who are affected by homelessness in our community.
PiT Count 2020 – General Info sheet
PiT Count Poster for Circulation
Training sessions will be held on weekend and weekday evenings.
For a direct link to volunteer registrations and to sign up for a training session click here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FNVTHKW.
This week the Face-to-Face with Stigma team, a group of facilitators, storytellers and speakers led their second workshop with the Victoria Police Department.
These workshops bring together individuals with lived experience from our community trained in storytelling with The Existence Project to share their own stories through engagement and work sessions. These sessions hold a variety of goals such as ending stigma, building individual capacity and encouraging #compassion in our communities.
These workshops mark the beginning of a series of anti-stigma workshops this year targeting a variety of audiences in our region. The team is sharing the voices of youth, Indigenous and lived-experience, and are creating safe and compassionate spaces of learning, sharing and expanding.
To learn more about this exciting project email team lead and Peer Support Worker, Kay Martin at:
Check out photos from this special day below:
Charitable#: BN: 842615221RR0001
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