‘Safe space’ will be there for families at MMIW hearings
Just a month ago, the long, narrow space at 44 E. Cordova St. was a dilapidated room with leaking ceilings and no furniture and badly in need of new paint.
The Vancouver city-owned property had been left in a state of disrepair after the last tenants moved out more than a decade ago.
“It was so drab and sad,” said Mary Clare Zak, the city’s managing director of social policy.
But today it’s a vibrant and welcoming “safe space” for local women and their families affected by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as it holds its latest round of hearings in the Vancouver area.
The space has been named the Saa-ust Centre, which means “to lift up” in Coast Salish.
The room, once home to a women’s centre, was renovated while local artists painted murals on one side of the room. The floor-to-ceiling artworks set against an exposed brick wall dominate the space.
“Where would we be without art,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson during a brief opening ceremony and media tour.
“This was long overdue,” he said of the opening of the centre. “There are deep wounds to heal.”
The centre is in the Downtown Eastside, the home of many of the victims of notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. Pickton was convicted in 2007 of the seconddegree murder of six women and was charged with the deaths of 20 others. And he confessed to an undercover officer that he had killed 49 people in total.
The inquiry, which is hearing families and survivors of hundreds of women who were murdered or are missing, is scheduled to meet for five days in April at a Richmond hotel. Those speaking at the hearings will have access to support from elders and counsellors at the hotel as they have at the inquiry elsewhere.
Zak said she didn’t know of another city that had a dedicated space for those affected by the hearings as Vancouver is doing. She said they expected hundreds of people to use the space as a respite from the hearings, for “trauma informed” counselling sessions (there are smaller private rooms) and cultural activities. The centre will remain open through the end of April, after which the Indigenous community will be invited to apply to use the space rent-free (but tenants are responsible for operating expenses).
Since it began in September 2016, the national inquiry has heard from 763 witnesses at 11 community hearings and one expert hearing, and collected an additional 276 additional statements and 45 artistic expressions.
The inquiry is scheduled to complete hearings by the end of this year, but earlier this month requested two more years be added to hear from the 630 additional people who have registered to testify.