The Downtown Eastside is well-known in Vancouver and across the country for its high levels of poverty and violence. Women are particularly at risk of violence in this area.
With 5 service sites located throughout Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), we serve the women who live and work in the area.
Despite skyrocketing levels of violence against women, safe spaces and services that welcome women remain few and far between in the Downtown Eastside. Co-ed spaces often only perpetuate and normalize mistreatment, harassment, and exploitation. For many women living with complex trauma, co-ed spaces are heavily avoided out of fear.
BIPOC women, especially Indigenous or Afro-Indigenous women, continue to face staggering levels of violence, overdoses, child apprehension, and institutional racism. These are only further compounded by the effects of colonialism, culture rupture, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, the Sixties Scoop, and discrimination.
However, contrary to a common misconception, women in the DTES are not victims in need of saving. They are strong women with a history of forming collective resilience and lifting one another up towards empowerment. Our services and structure grew from these grassroots beginnings; a group of community members responded to the needs of the DTES community to form a nurturing and non-judgmental environment for women to take refuge, access resources, and grow together towards healing and wholeness.