Housing First March-Spread the word

 

housing first — october 10, 2026

Imagine being a little girl in a department store with your mother when suddenly a huge crowd of angry men comes marching through the store, demanding work.

😬😱

That happened to my mother.

It would have been around 1934, during the Great Depression.

Imagine being a child and seeing that.

Men desperate for work. Families struggling. People demanding the basic opportunity to earn a living and survive.

Nearly a century later, I can't help wondering:

How much have we really changed?

Because today, people are still being pushed to the edge — except now the crisis is also about whether you can afford a place to live at all.

finally — a housing march

On October 10, 2026, there is going to be a Housing First March in Vancouver.

And we need everyone to come out.

Come from Vancouver.
Come from Surrey.
Come from the Valley.
Come from the Island.
Come from the Interior.
Come from wherever you live.

Because this isn't just a Vancouver problem.

Every town and every community is being affected by the housing crisis.

In B.C.'s 2023 homeless counts, 11,352 people were identified as experiencing homelessness across 27 communities.

8% were under 25.

And this really stays with me:

47% of respondents said they had first experienced homelessness when they were youth.

In the previous provincewide count, 21% of people experiencing homelessness were 55 or older.

These aren't just statistics.

They're people.

Young people.
Families.
Workers.
Seniors.
People who never imagined they would become homeless.

And people are dying.

At least 458 people experiencing homelessness died in B.C. in 2023.

when housing becomes a health-care problem

And here's another part of this crisis that doesn't get talked about enough.

Hospitals are not housing providers.

Doctors and nurses can treat illness and injury. Hospitals can provide emergency and acute care.

But what happens when someone is medically ready to leave — and has nowhere safe to go?

A hospital cannot become someone's permanent home.

People can end up being directed toward emergency shelters or other temporary accommodations.

And we need to be honest:

a shelter is not the same thing as a home.

Some people don't feel safe in shelters. Some environments can be chaotic, crowded or difficult for people with health, mobility, trauma or other needs. And even a good shelter is still temporary.

We cannot keep expecting the health-care system to pick up the pieces of a housing crisis.

Housing is part of health.

If someone has nowhere safe to sleep, nowhere to store their medication, nowhere to recover after an illness, or nowhere to go when they leave hospital, their health doesn't magically stop being a housing issue.

how did we get here?

We need to remember some history.

In 1993, the federal government stopped increasing funding for social housing, effectively ending federal funding for new social housing outside the exceptions that remained. In 1996, the federal government began transferring responsibility for administering much of the existing social-housing portfolio to the provinces.

Much of Canada's existing social housing was built between 1946 and 1993.

Then came years of cuts, restructuring and inadequate social supports.

Meanwhile, housing increasingly became an investment before it was treated as a basic necessity.

We have watched housing prices soar while people struggle to find somewhere affordable to live.

We have vacant homes.

We have luxury developments.

We have luxury cars that can cost more than what many people can afford to spend on an entire home.

And we just hosted FIFA.

The games are over.

The visitors have gone home.

But FIFA didn't solve the housing crisis.

Another major event cannot substitute for housing policy.

Another luxury tower cannot substitute for housing policy.

Another announcement cannot substitute for housing policy.

People need homes.

Safe homes.
Affordable homes.
Homes they can actually afford to stay in.

My mother saw desperate men demanding work during the Depression.

I wonder what she would think if she could see people today — working, raising children, growing old — and still unable to afford a place to live.

We should have learned something by now.

so come out

October 10, 2026
📍 Victory Square — 1:00 pm

The march will travel west on Hastings, south on Granville, then west on Robson to the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Bring your friends.
Bring your signs.
Bring your voice.

Come from the Valley.
Come from your town.
Come from wherever you are.

Because every community is affected.

This is not somebody else's problem.

It is the young person who can't afford to move out.
The worker who can't afford to live near work.
The family living in an overcrowded home.
The senior who can no longer afford rent.
The person sleeping outside.
The patient leaving hospital with nowhere safe to go.

Housing shouldn't be a privilege reserved for people who can afford it.

My mother saw men marching for work nearly a century ago.

Now we need to march for something just as fundamental:

a place to live.

💜 HOUSING FIRST.

Let's show up.

#HousingFirst #HousingCrisis #Homelessness #AffordableHousing #SocialHousing #HousingJustice #WorldHomelessDay #Vancouver #BCHousing #October10