Victoria Native Friendship Centre raising money for youth housing in the city

The Victoria Native Friendship Centre is trying to fundraise $1.3 million for a plot of land to build an affordable housing facility for Indigenous youth. 

The friendship centre is working on plans for a 45-unit building it says is badly needed.

"There's a housing crisis in all parts of this province, all parts of this country, and we're not immune to that," said Ron Rice, executive director of the Victoria Native Friendship Centre. 

"The challenge that we're seeing is the ripple effect for these demographics. Youth transitioning out of care are highly over-represented on the streets of Victoria in the homeless population."

The plan for the project is to build one-, two-, and three-bedroom units that would be rented to Indigenous youth, couples, young parents and some elders for below market rent. 

"Not everybody is connected to their biological elders, so to be able to create situations where people can seek advice or even just sort of a comforting visit ... sometimes it's just about belonging to a community," said Rice. 

The friendship centre has secured nearly $1.3 million in funding from private donations toward the $2.4 million cost of the land. The extra $200,000 raised will be used for assessments for things like parking and zoning reports that will need to be done.

 Currently the centre isn't disclosing the location of land, but said it is close to downtown Victoria. 

"We want to go and have some in-person conversations with the neighbourhood association and some of the neighbours and sort of introduce ourselves properly before we make any public announcements," said Rice. 

The friendship centre has two similar buildings that offer affordable housing to Indigenous people — Fernwood House and Siem Lelum. 

Rice said they faced some challenges when opening Siem Lelum with residents worried about having social housing in the neighbourhood. 

"In hindsight, it would have been great for us to spend some time talking with the neighbours about the kinds of people we've been building homes for," said Rice. 

But Rice said the neighbourhood association is now proud of the facility. 

Even if the friendship centre raises the money to buy the land, it will be a long time before anything could be built. The plan for the building will need to go before Victoria city council. 

"Even with the most pristine of plans, it's still, you know, probably going to be a couple of years before we even break ground," said Rice. 

Indigenous youth over-represented among homeless

The executive director of Threshold Housing Society, an organization that supports homeless youth in Victoria, said Indigenous youth are hugely over-represented in their services. 

"It's heartbreaking," said Colin Tessier. 

He said about 40 per cent of people accessing Threshold Housing Society's services are Indigenous youth. Tessier said about 150 youth are homeless on any given night in Victoria, and calls the situation an "emergency."

He said youth who end up homeless or at risk of homelessness tend to be fleeing violence or aging out of the foster care system without proper support. 

"Focusing resources and effort on at-risk and vulnerable youth not only ends homelessness for them today … they're less likely to run into those instances in the future as well," said Tessier.

Tessier said Threshold Housing Society will be supporting the friendship centre in any way it can to help this project happen.

"It's wonderful to see an Indigenous organization taking the lead and pursuing that project," he said.

"It's a bull's-eye to the need in our community."