Youth camp out to help homeless food program
For Vancouver’s homeless youth, a bed is sometimes just a piece of cardboard. Food, if found at all, might be scrounged from a dumpster.
On Wednesday night this week, Vancouver’s Directions Youth Services is hosting a fundraiser to raise money for their hot meals program.
Directions provides between 40 and 80 hot, nutritious meals at 8 p.m. every night to homeless youth out of a warm, friendly kitchen at their drop-in centre on Burrard Street just north of Davie.
Directions Food Services Coordinator Mette Bach said their evening meal provides a vital connection with support staff at the centre. “Staff and youth eat together. Many of our youth have experienced traumatic events, and it can take time to create trusting bonds. The nightly meal program is not just about nutritional survival, but it’s a chance to create relationships.”
The meals help connect vulnerable youth to other services the centre provides, like housing, medical care, counselling and detox.
A good nutritious meal costs about $3.73, said Nicki McGregor, manager of Directions Youth Services. Their budget covers only 54 cents per meal, so the bulk of funding comes through cash or in-kind donations. Last year, Directions served 49,621 hot meals to youth in need.
Participants in the fundraiser will arrive at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night (March 7), and do a short city walkabout to areas that homeless youth frequent.
They return to Directions Youth Services centre for a hot meal and to participate in a game that simulates the harsh conditions and barriers at-risk youth face.
Participants receive a card with a fictitious identity, including a backstory, that reflects an experience familiar to youth who access the centre, whether it’s a mental health issue or addiction, a history of incarceration, a lack of ID, or homelessness.
“We turn our youth drop-in centre into a mini-city with a police station, a hospital, a restaurant, a store, a government building and a transit system, and a cardboard ‘Van City Estates’ where you can rent an apartment,” explained McGregor.
Donors get a few coins, an identity with a set of challenges, including obtaining three meals, getting a job, and finding somewhere to live.
“They might go to the restaurant because they’ve seen a job is available, but they might not get hired because they don’t have a necktie. Neckties are available at the store, but they cost two coins. But they also need to purchase a meal, so they have to decide if they are going to buy a meal, or take transit. If they don’t have ID, they might get arrested.”
The evening culminates in a tent camp-out overnight on Burrard Street. MEC has donated sleeping bags, but the beds will be cardboard boxes collected by staff.
McGregor hopes the event will promote understanding of the challenges that youths face on the street — and help fund the meal program.