“Through the Eye of the Raven” mural in Vancouver. Credit: Vancouver Native Housing Society

Vancouver Native Housing Society is a non-profit society in Vancouver, operating since 1984 with a mandate to provide safe, secure, affordable, and appropriate housing for families and individuals from the urban Indigenous community. VNHS currently owns and operates 19 buildings in Vancouver, containing 805 homes, and has another 152 homes in development.

VNHS’s many projects, housing and otherwise, offer the organization the opportunity to fuse Indigenous traditional culture with community building and placemaking efforts.

“Recognizing the importance of tradition, culture, and spirituality to our Indigenous populations,” explains VNHS CEO David Eddy, “we have incorporated those values into the housing that we create, so that what we do is not just about providing the bricks and mortar of housing but integrates and weaves into those structures symbols and images that have intrinsic meaning to many of our residents… This idea speaks to the importance and relevance of those values in the lives of people who have been marginalized and discriminated against because of who they are.”

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed in 2008, submitted its final report in 2014. Vancouver, along with other cities, declared 2013-2014 as a “Year of Reconciliation.” Eddy notes, “There is now a theme of reconciliation rolling out across Canada and gaining momentum, based on people’s notions of justice, fairness, recognition of wrongdoing, and a desire to right wrongs, thus moving towards making things better for Indigenous peoples.”

Addressing reconciliation in its projects isn’t a mandated requirement, and VNHS’s strategy to celebrate traditional Indigenous culture in housing projects began years before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report. Yet VNHS’s approach is “… in line with the principles laid out in the report,” says Eddy. “While not initially planned that way, our practices flow into and support the theme of reconciliation and now guide us as we move forward.”

Download Summer 2019

To read about VNHS’s many projects featuring Indigenous tradition, culture, and spirituality, see Eddy’s “Housing and Reconciliation” in the Summer 2019 edition of Input. Download Summer 2019

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