Vancouver and Surrey
OpenHearth is built in the Lower Mainland, for the Lower Mainland. Our first programs are in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and in Surrey, on the territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, QayQayt, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen Nations.
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The region is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous communities in Canada, and more than 12,000 Indigenous people live in Surrey alone, according to the 2021 Census. Across both cities, the work of caring for community happens in small rooms, drop-ins and front desks. OpenHearth is intended to support that work.
A city that backs its own
Vancouver has a long history of building its own support when no one else will. In 1943, a secretary named Alice MacKay gave the $1,000 she had saved to help women without homes. Lumberman Whitford VanDusen founded the Vancouver Foundation that year, and with gifts from other families its first endowment reached $101,000. The Foundation has since granted more than $1 billion to charities and community projects.
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In 1946, fourteen Vancouver residents started Vancity, a credit union open to anyone in the city. It was the first to offer mortgages in the working-class east end, and in 1961 it became the first financial institution in BC to give women mortgages without a male co-signer. It is now the largest community credit union in Canada.
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In 1963, the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society was registered, and it has served the community for more than 60 years. The pattern is consistent: neighbours identify a gap and fill it themselves. OpenHearth is intended to be a small part of that tradition, so that community programs spend less time on paperwork and more time with people.
Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society
The Friendship Centre began in the early 1950s as the Coqualeetza Fellowship Club, started by former students of Coqualeetza Residential School who wanted a place to find each other in the city. In 1963 it opened as the Vancouver Indian Centre, one of the first Friendship Centres in Canada. Its founders included Chief Gertrude Guerin, Judge Alfred Scow, Chief Simon Baker and Senator Guy Williams.
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After homes on Richards Street, West Broadway and in Kitsilano, the Centre settled at 1607 East Hastings Street, where it has been for more than forty years. Today it offers programs in health, culture, education, recreation and social services for Indigenous people of every age.
Urban Native Youth Association
The Urban Native Youth Association started in 1988 to support Indigenous young people who had come to Vancouver, often far from their home communities. It welcomes First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth, status and non-status.
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Today UNYA runs more than twenty programs, from drop-in spaces and alternative schools to counselling, housing support, arts, sports and 2-Spirit services, with around 30,000 youth visits a year. It is now planning a new Indigenous Youth Centre at East Hastings and Commercial Drive, bringing youth services, learning, housing and childcare under one roof.
Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association
FRAFCA is based in Surrey and serves the Fraser Salish Region. It was established in 1996 and became a designated Friendship Centre in 2012, the newest in BC.
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Its programs include early childhood development, family services, youth and Elders programming, and support for housing and wellness, with culturally grounded care for urban Indigenous people.
Our work here
In January, OpenHearth begins its first pilot with four community organizations across Vancouver and Surrey. Program staff will record visits with a quick check-in at the front desk or a QR code at the door, and funder reports will be generated from those check-ins. A check-in records attendance, not location.
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We are starting with a small group so that we can learn from the people using OpenHearth before we expand.