A storage facility for the homeless in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has been selected as a finalist to receive $25,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project.
The First United shelter at 320 East Hastings serves over 250 people who are homeless or marginalized on a daily basis, providing meals, a place to sleep and shower, support networks, and secure short-term storage for personal belongings. The self storage facility is open 23 hours a day.
“Prior to the opening of the storage facility in our community, homeless people had to carry their belongings in bags or push them in carts where ever they went,” reads the description of the project on the Pepsi Refresh website. “This burden denied people access to basic things such as using a toilet and going for a meal.”
Founded in October 2009, the storage facility was originally funded for one year through a grant from the City of Vancouver. To keep the program running, the shelter’s executive minister Rev. Ric Matthews requested $25,000 in funding to cover operational costs including staffing, cleaning, supplying and maintaining the facility.
The storage facility program was one of over 270 submitted projects in the Food and Shelter category, and was ranked in first place as a finalist. Finalists were identified on the Pepsi Refresh Project website at 12 p.m. Eastern Time November 1. Only legal residents of Canada 13 years of age or older were eligible to vote.
The second ranked program at the time of the finalist announcement was a veterinary care program for senior and special needs animals.
Regarding the value of the First United program, an Eastside resident known as Willy G said, “The storage facility is a substance which keeps my hopes alive,” as quoted in an October 29 article by Suzanne Fournier for The Province.
Sources used:
First United
Pepsi Refresh Project
Fournier, Suzanne. “Deadline looms for vote on storage facility for Vancouver's homeless.” The Province. Oct. 29, 2010