a home it's something we all need but for too many having a safe place to make a home is Out Of Reach the challenges can seem insurmountable and yet each and every day people are coming together to provide safe quality and affordable housing for those in need welcome to let's talk housing I'm your host Mary gergus join us as we listen to and learn from people in British Columbia who are creating strong inclusive communities where everyone can [Music] Thrive I'm Mary gergus executive director of
reconciliation and Equity strategies at BC housing and guest host for this episode of let's talk housing where we listen and learn from people in British Columbia who are creating inclusive communities where everyone can Thrive this week we talk with Hogan's Alley's modupe bcole Long John Claude bakunda kiz from Swahili Vision International and Brook melis from the city of Vancouver about the importance of Housing and services for communities of black and afro descent in British Columbia as we b
egin today's podcast I would like to acknowledge and and thank and express my deepest gratitudes for being a long-term visitor on these lands um we are recording today from the territories of the musam the Squamish and the slaya tooth peoples so with that let's let's dig in Jean Claude let's let's start with you you arrived as a newcomer to Vancouver in 2005 leaving family and your experiences in Burundi and East Africa this experience as a newcomer led to your co-founding of Swahili Vision Inte
rnational can you tell us what that was like for you when you first arrived in Canada and and specifically how did it feel looking for housing specifically as a newcomer thanks so much for that question and uh thank you for moderating today so I came in 2005 and uh looking for housing here I was quite a shocking experience as you could imagine I grew up in Ethiopia and moved here to Vancouver directly from Adis Ababa back in Addis for looking for housing was not really as u a hassle as it was he
re so I'll leave in downtown Vancouver upon arrival for about a month and uh the facilities where was housed uh they had made it clear that uh after a certain amount of time you have to look for know proper housing somewhere else and uh living in downtown V see all the the glitter you know and the highrises of course the first thought is you know I should find something within this area know Seymour Street so Grandville Street and uh by the time you start looking at the prices and know you figur
very very quickly that no I can't fit in here that my place will probably be somewhere in barnabi or SII or New West back in the days I think now it's even harder to find places uh housing in those areas well so uh as soon as I start looking well I moved in to Edmund's area I moved in with uh uh newcomers as well a couple of uh uh very young couple with a young child I lived with them for about 3 months and after three months they figured they needed to uh find the proper no an apartment of the
ir own so I was F I found myself on my own at at that time then I start looking for apartment one bedroom apartment for myself and uh so many things happened then uh believe one of the anecdotes I like to tell people is uh the day but by the time by the way I worked for Microsoft and uh I worked for this uh project project called ad Center Microsoft ad Center it was a pilot project uh which we were required to dress properly so to be casual you know uh business casual so at the time when I was l
ooking for an apartment I remember calling uh this lady I remember her name was Orga Orga was herself I believe uh cuz I detected a certain accent salvic accent so I believe she was a an immigrant herself I um speaking to her she uh assured me when I was talking to her I like to believe but by the time believe that know my my English was not really that bad I spoke clearly and concisely so she's like yeah you know we have apartment we have two of them actually ready to go and I mean I come sit t
hem whenever he wants when can you be 15 minutes I can drop by and take a look at it yeah they're here they're waiting I'm here just come whenever you can and I get to the apartment building I like yeah I'm here for the apartment just spoke to you about 15 minute ago said yeah yeah you know the lady looked at me and is like now we have no housing now we Have No Vacancy it's like no no we we just park on the phone 15 minute it's like yeah no no no we Have No Vacancy like you have two of them you
you said you come down to it for me like no sorry no vacy we have no vacy like but the sign say vacany two and three bedroom like no I'm sorry no vacany and it hit me right there and then that on the phone she could not ask see the color of my skin and once I get there at the door and she came to actually show me the apartment she promise and she show the col my skin that she changed her mind right on the spt it really hit me so hard at the time that uh the color of my skin can be determinant wh
ether I can find housing in this country it was really shocking and um with that though I realized I have to go through those hardos F housing you know it's not just it's not you know it's not good but it's what you have to go through as a black person living uh coming to Canada so it was an ey opening but uh the um civil lining is that uh I ended up living in New West for three years and I lived in an apartment building uh owned by an ism brother from who from Uganda you know those who are fami
liar with the isi community who could speak a bit of a Swahili and when he heard that I was from East Africa and I could speak Swahili which was very reminiscent of him growing up u in Uganda without any animosity with the EDM know situation that they went through but uh you know it was nice for me to feel that I'm living in a building owned by someone who actually understand where I'm coming from it's it's a hard story to hear but I know that it's reflective of the reality of so many folks who
come here in search of housing um or or who are you know long long-term born and raised in in the Lower Mainland and they're black and they also face that um so I I guess my my question and it it sounds like I saw mupe sort of nodding along as well I know mupe you have um been working with Hogan's alley Solutions lab really looking at researching key themes and and findings around the gaps and barriers uh that exist for black and afrod descendant housing issu um afrod descendant folks um who are
looking for for housing and accessing housing do do you find that this sort of story comes up a lot this sort of this theme um and can you maybe tell us a little bit about the research that that you've been doing oh yes thank you so much Mary and thank you John Claude for sharing that story yeah I was nden because it reflects what many people many of our survey respondents many uh many of them agreed or shared the same story that um Jin clot just um mentioned so like they call the houses availa
ble and then they go in person and all of a sudden it becomes unavailable and some of them have to usually go with their white friends and then the house becomes available again so yeah we saw that um come up many times in our research so we conducted um a a research that included a quantitative and a qualitative part to understand the barriers that black communities face when it comes to accessing affordable houset in Metro Vancouver and some of the barriers that we identified were affordable a
ffordability challenges in which case many black people who are in The Many of which are in the lwi income status like low social economic status they have to spend about 70% of their income on rent to to to pay for probably a room or somewhere that's not even so convenient for them um and then the other piece that we identified was the outen discrimination against black communities so we wanted to really break down this discrimination and so we looked at topics like race income family status ge
nder and we identified that um about 80% of our respondents that's about because we targeted black people specifically in Metro Vancouver that 80% of those people that participated in the online survey have experienced discrimination due to race like they were not giving hes because of their skin color and then the other piece was people like some landlords go ahead to ask about um their income and then some of some of them were denied as well as well as family status and the issue of family sta
tus was really a shocking piece because when you have a very large family size like say you have four kids five kids of which many people in Africa usually like like have large families so many many of them were also denied a place to put over their heads because of their large family size as well we also notice discrimination due to your gender like many um genderly diverse groups were also denied like based on their look and based on their identity they were not they were not given a place to
stay that was really really really really shocking and then we identified that 28% of our subve respondents were also like forcefully evicted so once the landlord is looking to increase their rent they kind of like come up with different reasons like oh I want to use the space I have um other plans for the space and then they evict them so that the next person that comes in will will pay a higher rent so that was really another issue that came up um aside the data piece we also identified like d
ifferent policies that are not like helping black people like vacancy DEC control that gives lot the opportunity to actually evict um renters like long-standing renters for the purpose of bringing new renters that could pay a higher rent that was identified and then um policies that favors or encourages um financialized landlords that those are landlords that actually like buy old buildings and then they refurbish it but by the time they are putting it back into the market it's at a cost that um
most people will be unable to to afford and then we also identify that the displacement that black people um experience because um like we had this bubbling community of black people which was called Oran zali society which was called Oran Z but it was displaced for um under the urban renewal project and after that displacement we noticed that there has not being a um that kind of community of black people in Vancouver anymore so the lack of black enclaves as actually wasn't the case for um bla
ck people generally so they don't have access to to like support services and things anymore as they all like we all like in different locations in the province and yeah those are some of the things that we identified from the research that's fantastic um and and thank you so much for for taking this work on for you and for Hogan's alley for I know we we hear as as housing uh practitioners and people in the sector a lot of anecdotal uh right a lot of stories are shared by folks either from black
communities or other equity-seeking communities or or even indigenous communities we hear lots of anecdotal stories um and and we're you know we're always it feels like we're almost forced to like unless we have the data unless we have the numbers and the research and you know there's strong methodological backing behind it that that's what it takes to get sort of heard and and and um get some attention uh and get some prioritization so just the fact that you've done this work is is so critical
modupe and I I guess in that I I'm thinking about the importance and this maybe this question is for you Brook the importance of Grassroots organizations in the context of sort of you know black communities um and and folks who are really facing systemic discrimination in the housing sector how important um are our Grassroots organizations like Swahili Vision like Hogan allei Society thank you so much and uh thank you John Claud and modip as well for for your sharing today and sharing this spac
e um to your question Mary absolutely immeasurable um the work that you know as you just said often the information is anecdotal and shared through Community but the importance of now actually um quantifying and having the qualitative information um to to back it up it's unfortunate but you're right that's how that's how it it works and and we need this really important information so kudos to Hogan alley Society for your work uh in that area and I also want to really acknowledge um the importan
t work Hogan's alley Society did in in for 2020 around the homeless count um really pivotal moment in terms of um your work alongside um I wasn't at the city then but alongside the city BC housing um other key Partners um that ensuring that racialized data was included in the homeless count that's just you know just in 2020 um super important um piece of work to start really understanding and getting richer information um knowing of course there are limitations to counts absolutely um but it's i
t is a it is a a point of information that we can now look at you know for example what happened in 2023 and the count and moving forward and really start to build on the knowledge that Grassroots um Community organizations have um as municipal government we're closest to community in many ways so it's really important for us to collaborate with um with Community Partners and ensuring that Municipal provincial Federal governments all have you know this important um information so it's it's excit
ing to see the the ground swall of work starting Absolutely I'll shift back to Jean Claude and and I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about how Swahili Vision International came about and and what kind of supports do you offer the community that that accesses your services ah thank you so um um I'm a father of seven kids seven young kids under the age of 10 one of them is past 10 already and I know the kind of struggles I go through when it comes to looking for a place to stay and uh
I've have seen that many years over and over and over again so I sometimes when I'm visiting community and uh looking at how people especially swah picking in particular swah picking Community how they struggle especially young single moms and um young uh peers will move there without any uh elaborate uh education and I see what they go through uh it kind of really breaks my heart every time I see someone going through some tremendous hardship to find this a suitable place to say or to navigate
the B the bureaucratic know processes in the in the in the city so uh me and my friend Amani Amani band uh we came up with that idea once so that we we figure well there's so many people coming from so many different country in East Africa and that when they get here not all of them can actually navigate uh the processes very easily a lot of them are going through the cracks you know there we have uh resources out there but sometimes people don't really reach those resources or don't even know w
here to find those resources and that they they miss out on so many things which create that a huge um hardship for them so we figur say you know we should create an association that will bring people together right so that if someone is going through some hardship like we we want to go find a doctor but you don't have someone to do um the talking for you because you can't really Express yourself in English properly then you can talk to us and we figured out someone who has some some time of the
we can take some time of their hands as a volunteer to come in uh you know advocate for you for example so we started that way and that was our mandate just try to figure out the helpless in our community and they give them uh that kind of facilities and we started out uh just you know making some events cultural events you know highlighting uh our culture and tradition swah language cult traditions and um so we grew and once we're growing we figure a lot of people were coming in with different
needs and not exactly just the simple things we used to think of then that's how we Branch into housing because we figure many many single moms especially in uh many area in the Greater Vancouver area who tell us how much they've been suffering just to find an an an appropriate place to live so we taed knocking on doors that's how we met uh uh Jeffrey who is um from Kenya that's why uh one of our member and they came up the idea of partnership partnering with uh illuminative Housing Society and
so we did not have the Mandate we didn't give ourselves the mandates to go into housing but the needs of the people out there just kind of gr now nowadays people even include foods like I can't really I don't have have enough to feed my children here and so said no we can't we don't have that kind of capacity but we can direct you toward the resources where the resources can be found you know Many Things are Written in English and some people don't even have that capacity to actually understand
the documents that are written so um was a surprised actually to find out that the city of Suri uh probably the first one have on their website an option to read their full content in Swahili language and I really applaud that for that's fantastic and it's it's it's incredible to see all the work that really happened and and I'm really curious to pick a little bit at and pull a thread from what you've you know you've you've dropped for us here around the partnership between Swahili Village um a
nd Luma native housing I'm I'm always really intrigued when I see sort of cross-pollination and partnership happening um between two sort of you know communities that that really struggle with with very similar um you know concerns and gaps and barriers can you can you tell us a little bit more about that how did that come about John Claude so the ideas uh goes back um um Long Way um it's uh one of our the founder and CEO at saluma Housing Society uh went on that trip in uh in Kenya and while in
Kenya they were just you know was a kind of an educative uh trip so they wanted to learn about the ways of the people out there and uh you know how they live and how they navigate life every day and during that trip uh he met Jeffrey Jeffrey who lived in the slums back in the day back in those days and he was um touched by the story of Jeffrey and he invited Jeffrey to come and speak to a youth uh conference here a native youth conference uh to speak about his experience and what he um know he'
s experiencing Islams uh Jeffrey came and he did that and then he ended up staying in Canada he's now married uh he about 20 years now uh with three beautiful children so uh based on the history and the history of uh Jeffrey he they had this idea that one day we can create a housing because swah people and Indigenous people in Canada we have a sort of a parall history you know colonization uh being up uprooted from your land and all that so they said oh we will I will we would like to see a proj
ect realized one day where we can have soilis picking people living uh next to uh indigenous people then it was just an idea back then and that pipeline idea came to fruition Jeffrey came to me and they said what this is a really great idea let's go with this and I spoke to um uh the people at illuminative Housing Society and we put that in place and thank you to uh uh BC housing for uh coming along with the uh plan and uh B government as well so uh the idea was having one kind of a village sett
ing where two population will live uh next to each other learning of each other creating uh a community that have not have never been seen before and we a lot of people there A lot of n say I was like know this is not going to work like you know there will be a lot of a conflict going you know we are trying this as the first time and we want to see this I want to say TR to fuan we a lot of people tell us that people will not will not get along but now we have so much in common that this would wo
rk yes I love that so much and that's so inspiring how could we not get behind that kind of vision where we're sort of affirming solidarity across groups and and acknowledging that the shared experience of colonialism and how important it is for us to sort of raise one another up as we're fighting for our own um you know our own rights and our own place here in in society um modupe I I I I feel like this is something you can really speak to um because Hogan's alley does provide culturally safe h
ousing for both black and Indigenous community members experiencing homelessness so what what does that mean what does that what does that look like can you can you take us there for a second oh okay um thank you very much um so at aens alley we run a 52 unit temporary modular hous that uh nri's place which sit on the orans h block right now and then yeah we have both black and Indigenous residents um because it's an intention to really prioritize both black and Indigenous community members that
are experiencing um homelessness so what it really means for the organization is that we we are actually working on and looking to um create um apocentric affordable and culturally sensitive housing we notice that both communities have actually experienced different um different issues from colonialism and different levels of systemic racism and so we are working on building that um environment that is culturally sensitive and supportive so what we what we what it means is we have both indigeno
us and black people were represented in our members of Staff we also organize different culturally appropriate um programs we invite um um knowledge Keepers we invite Elders we conduct culturally sensitive training culturally competency training as well because we we kind of like highlight the importance of um trauma informed ien trauma informed care so that people um don't just um do not just have a space over their head but they really have a space that they can call home a space that they can
look forward to look forward to coming back to relaxing a space that welcomes them a space that makes them feel loved and so we do all these activities both with um celebrating indigenous culture um celebrating Remembrance Day um celebrating um R Dr day like different activities where we have the elders coming we have the knowledge Keepers coming and just really celebrate um indigenous culture alongside we also celebrate the African culture as well and we are even trying to like re re U make su
re that the African culture is like also put out there because we we've see that due to the displacement of the black people generally we don't really have that recognition anymore so as much as we can whenever we have that opportunity we kind of like um um inculcate the cultural practices cultural events as well and then um we also in involve our black and Indigenous residents as well as staff in indigenous making because we believe that um it's organizing programs for us and by us so we en we
encourage them to participate in decision making and so through our um through our directors at Norah Hendrick's place um the Community Care program director and shivon Baka and as well as um okam the director of special project we organize um like resident meeting so there's we usually a monthly meeting where we all meet with the resident and hear their complaints he their struggles and we work acidly to um attend to those issues um and then yeah we also address like different um structural ine
quities like um advocating for Resident advocating for like black people that are referred to us like yeah we just do that in different ways sounds like so many different ways to integrate uh cultural lens and safety to the work so it's fantastic so I I think that but uh maybe for Brooke what I guess on on the same sort of vein of of communities and connecting across communities what opportunities do you see for partnership and future housing initiatives for communities of uh African descent and
how will this specifically impact your role in addressing homelessness at the city of Vancouver yeah thank you so uh I could share maybe a little bit about um the work of our team so as part of the homelessness Services team we have a fairly large Outreach team who uh we have a storefront here on Powell Street and we um we uh support individuals who are looking for access to housing income identification um and support services and we have seen such a trend uh particularly in this last year of
of such an increase of of folks who are of African descent uh a lot of newcomers um you know we see approximately 100 people a day and we sort of really kept we're trying to really keep good information around the trends that we're seeing and over a three Monon period kind of from November through January we' say it was about 40% of the folks we were serving um or are either black or Africa descent newcomers um and just kind of like you know remember anecdotally I'll just share one day in the yo
u know late summer early fall I coming to work I literally everyone in the lineup look like me you know like it's like what's going on here um you know in terms of the the the trends right and and you know we definitely need more housing options such as the Community Partnerships um that jeanclaude and mupe have been talking about um and culturally sensitive culturally aware I mean certainly we do everything we can here to support individuals to connect them to um the support services um that th
ey require and also um just in terms of you know the homeless count data um you know this last count in 2023 um of those who answered the racial ident racial identity question 7% um identified as being um black whether it was of African a Caribbean or Canadian American um you know background and um you know we're only what 1.3% of the population in Vancouver so that is that is absolutely significant um in terms of in terms of over representation in homelessness um so definitely there's more work
to be done around around Partnerships and um access to shelter and housing um that is appropriate and um you know families as well we're seeing families unfortunately um who are looking for more support Jean Claud you talked a little bit about that already but um yeah yeah I think there's definitely more more that we can continue to do together yeah absolutely and that those are those are really eye-opening numbers and I think that just speaks to the the importance of of of data in really highl
ighting the serious discrepancies and sort of disproportionate representation of of of black folks um on the streets or unhoused um so I I'm just being prompted here to invite our viewers to share any questions in the chat and we'd be happy to um look through those and and integrate them into the conversation here um I have I do have a question here from um an an anonymous viewer um let's see it's for modupe so modupe could you comment on on the strategy which I see as demonstrated in Hogan's al
ley society's data around interesting divide and conquer causing the dispersing of black people throughout BC housing and significantly lessening the community population um a question for everyone what kind of things okay that's the next one so let's let's stay there um mupe can you can you comment on that sort of divide and conquer theme that that is is introduced in Hogan Al's language that te like the divide and conquer um thing was I think it was related to the Oban renewal program where we
see that virtually at relatively at the same time black communities were displaced across the country at least um we are aware of um the displacement of Oran Al um Oran zali the displacement of africville also in Nova Scotia so that was happening concurrently under the same um Federal Government funding and was just under the um like the court of or renewal program so like we black people were already well settled at aali they really found the place really hely for them like people recorded sto
ries of always looking to come back home like come back home to enjoy the music in the night to enjoy pop music to enjoy food um at night but all that was gone after the displacement and so some some of them have actually acquired houses houses that they intended to to transfer to their children to transfer to other Generations but all that was gone following the displacement and so after the displacement it has been very difficult for black people generally to afford housing to to rent a home n
ot to talk of buying a home so it's been very very challenging for for all black communities as we are disp passed everywhere and we know that there's usually power in unity so when there's no Community Co where there's a lack of black Enclave there's a lack of community there's a lack of support it's it's more difficult like beyond the area of a now it's more difficult to address different um governmental Services different programs and yeah it's just been challenging for the black people absol
utely yeah I hear you there and and I think that it's also impacted right like as you're saying generational wealth that just cut folks off at the knees and they weren't able to pass on the sort of the the value that they'd be getting from their property on to the generations to come which is a a really very problematic thing um so I guess the next question here is what can what kinds of be what kinds of things can BC housing do uh to further support the world that um that your organizations are
doing um to support black and afro descendant community members what can what can BC housing do to support that and maybe I'll I'll go to John Claude oh thank you thank you Mary uh well we know BC housing is already um uh quite overwhelmed with uh so many um uh requests but uh to see that you do come on board projects like the one we have in usest that is one thing that give us encouragement I mentioned uh to um someone earlier that I've been Inc housing waiting list uh almost 10 years now sinc
e since 2016 and I've been waiting unfortunately I but know keep having kids and I guess my needs um are little now peculiar to be housing but we know a lot of people will be saying you know I've been I've been waiting to find an propoerty housing from BC housing and we understand that BC they resp respons is always well all we can do is take your request and the housing provider will follow up and we we we don't really hold that against speci housing for sure but so many projects like for now w
e are really in the African or um East African Community we are looking forward to have a land trust of Our Own in in the future where we can actually raise funds to build housing for our marginalized our own marginalized population and this is probably far long but we still we it's there the idea is there and a lot of people are on top of that and we hope that when we come knocking at Bish housing doors you can hear us you can hear our voices we can hear our proposals and uh you know go along w
ith us so we've seen this being done and uh we are very confident that when we come looking for that you will be on our side thank you thank you jeanclaude and Brook I wonder if you have any thoughts on that question as well given sort of the work that uh you've been involved in with BC housing and then sort of your perspective at the municipal level thanks Mary yeah it's a it's a good question you know just to add there's a there's a spectrum right of of needs um within um within the black comm
unities um and I guess maybe as a early like an immigrant to to this area as a as a young child kind of watched our our Ethiopian community and other black communities grow um over the years and I think about um you know on one end we've got newcomers and then we've also got seniors is another area that I think we need to talk about and um who need cultural Services cultural supports and a lot of that work happens very informally within our communities um you know community members supporting on
e another and I think of I think of like the seniors uh seniors homes seniors housing that are you know like German Canadian Finnish Canadian you know all these nonprofit societies where I think that's somewhere we where we also need to kind of do more work like build capacity within within nonprofit sectors so we have the capacity to partner with BC housing um with municipalities and and actually think long game here um you know we are we are a part of the community we are not going anywhere an
d we need plan for our newcomers and our seniors along the Spectrum as well um but lots to do for sure around um you know this burgeoning um you know population of um Refugee claimants Asylum Seekers a lot of lot from African countries that uh don't yet have those supports so certainly um certainly there's more work to do for sure absolutely yeah um I'll go to modupe and and maybe also open open it up to to all of you after this is it's an adjacent topic and it's something you're touching on Bro
oke in terms of the amount of folks who are newcomers who are Asylum Seekers um um and and sort of what what sort of re resources are currently available for new immigrants to Canada craving Community feeling lonely we know that isolation is a real issue that many people face here in in Vancouver and and other parts of the province um so yeah wondering if you have any any thoughts on that or any resources yeah yeah thank you so much before I continue I wanted to um acknowledge the work of the st
aff and members at Oran zali society as well as um the lead consultant of the Housing Solutions lab Wood Buffalo strategy group um Jerome Moran and the researchers that also worked on the project Nimo leis and Cil cotic um regarding your question about s um sources that are avail aable those were part of the gaps and barriers that were identified so we usually have to rely on grassroot organization like what we do at orens Alle because at orens Al we have the ABS support program that tries to ad
vocate for newcomers so when we have newcomers reach out to us we try to work with them like a um director of Community Care tries to work with them like really closely and help help them to navigate all these resources es and also to Advocate um when it comes to them accessing a a a house or a home from a landlord and it's becoming challenging we try to step in and speak up for them or make a case for them um we also have some like different groups like they are majorly like Grassroots organiza
tion that offer these services in Canada and that's one really important thing that our Solutions lab and our research has identified that there's a need to create a centralized H for black renters where they can like easily um go to and access all these resources that are available like it could come in the form of a website or it could come in the form of um collaborating with other organizations or it could also come in the form of um having a peer Advocate that would um work with them and re
ally like put them through the process because honestly as a newcomer it's really really challenging to get a home because of all the restrictions that landlords put they want to do your credit check they want you to send a reference but you don't have any of that because of course you just coming so we we really need um a centralized up and aside from that we need um to work on our policies like housing policies there are so many things that need to be changed yeah I'll stop there for now thank
you that's a excellent excellent response um wondering if uh jeanclaude do you have anything to add to that in terms of resources um that are available to folks uh or we can move on yeah well um just wanted to was reading through the uh um C chrc what is say um about the housing strategy act the National Housing strategy act um which was enacted I think in 2019 and say housing is a human right and how being a human rights the government of Canada commits organizations and government to reform h
ousing laws policies and programs for a human rights perspective and to involve communities in meaningful ways a lot of our people here are going through quite a tremendous amount of a trace because of Housing and we know that the government is doing all they can we just heard of the $2 billion doll uh um BC build and we we're still looking to see how that's going to translate to the Black Fork and East Africans So speaking and so we we are really hopeful we hopeful that the housing crisis we un
derstand the housing crisis is not really just for black folks it's for everyone you know everyone is is well we're not affected we affected a bit differently you know it does weigh a lot of a lot more in a black community but we want to see a lot more being done we want to see the government and you know through BC the provincial government through BC housing know step stepping up stepping up your role and giving us a little bit more so that our people can actually see something being done and
it can be hopeful you know we don't we don't want to expect too much but we just want to see that be marginalized at least the lower bottom ones are not affected as much as they are we would like not to see someone come crying at our offices somewhere saying that I'm going to be thrown out and I don't know what to do and I don't have the means to actually afford anything within the community where I live we don't want that to continue going and we would like to see a lot being done on the profes
sional level even actually on the uh Federal level yeah now we appreciate your sentiments around hopefulness um and we know we know that since 2017 the province has more than 77,000 homes delivered uh or under underway and we're working to rapidly increase the housing stock in BC you mentioned BC builds um and and that's I think another reason Reon why Partnerships with Grassroots organizations like Hogan allei Society sili Vision International are are so critical for us to raise up as these mod
els that that are established around how to provide culturally Supportive Housing for for black folks and folks of African descent so and also speaking to Brooke in her role you know the importance of Partnerships with municipalities and and really connecting the different stakeholders rights holders partners to to Really support one another as we're part of this larger sort of interconnected ecosystem so that's really critical here so I'm I'm gonna conclude uh actually our our live presentation
for the let's talk housing podcast I really just want to express my deepest gratitude uh to the panelists for your contributions um today and then for the incredible work to support black and afro descendant communities uh it's it's just really um exciting and inspiring work that you do and we're grateful for that and of course thank BC housing's employees who've joined us today for the work that you do today and each and every day supporting sort of the the housing objectives that British Colu
mbia um and the province sort of has put out for us I know that the work is hard the work is long the work is heavy and and also the work there's a lot of Joy uh that comes along with this work work as well so I just want to encourage you all and thank you all for for all all your work and all your effort uh day to day thank you so much and uh looking forward to carrying on the conversation moving forward to learn more about BC housing including how to apply for subsidized housing in British Col
umbia visit bchh housing.org you can also find us on Facebook Instagram LinkedIn and X if you enjoyed this episode give us a rating this will help others find let's talk housing and join the conversation you can subscribe to let's talk housing on Apple Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts
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