The Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness Society started out with a small dream. We built something very large, in the sense of the impact we're having in successfully housing people. I think that should be seen as not necessarily being about the roof and the four walls but about the service and the programming, and about creating ways to address that feeling of being monitored and watched.
In many ways and at many times, indigenous people have had to feel like they were lining up and were just a number in having a service. The way we want to lead is to address the fact that we know what those feelings are and we want to eliminate them. We can do that by supporting the indigenous population and by reflecting that we have learned from that knowledge and we're going to do something differently.
Investing into the work that we're doing creates a different platform, in a way. We can actually say that we're housing people with this positive flow that everyone's trying to contribute to—from the street to supportive housing to shelter, and from supportive housing into independent housing and affordable housing.
The numbers may seem small, but I can tell you that we have helped 14 and pretty close to 20 people move into independent housing. We were a champion for them, to witness their work, but in many senses it was the discrimination and the visible viewpoint of them that didn't allow them to be housed. Now that they have the support, here they are, over a year later, rocking it and feeling like a part of society. Rather than “I don't want to be the burden” or “I don't want to be certain things in this world”, they're totally going, “People, I'm going to be amazing.”