Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House
Administration & Mailing Address
501 East Hastings @ Jackson Vancouver BC V6A 1P9
Telephone: 604 / 215.2030 Fax: 604 / 215.2080
Programming Venue
573 East Hastings @ Princess Vancouver BC V6A 1P9
Telephone: 604 / 215.2090
Food Philosophy | Founding Members | Friends of the DTES NH | Harm Reduction | Honourary Neighbours | Housing | Neighbourhood Houses | Staff and Board | Substances | Volunteers
Our History
In October 2004 20+ DTES residents formed the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House Steering Committee with the goal of creating a secular, grassroots NH which welcomes DTES residents of all ancestries – individuals, families, youth and elders. Beginning in May 2005 we functioned as a satellite of Gordon Neighbourhood House [a member of the Association of Neighbourhood Houses of Greater Vancouver], benefiting from the mentorship of both organizations. In June 2009 the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House became a registered non-profit Society.
The grassroots and secular DTES Neighbourhood House is Vancouver’s first new NH in 20 years. Three staff and Volunteers work to fortify the voice and ambitions of our neighbours by sustaining a NH in which DTES residents of all ages, genders and ancestries sculpt their future while honouring the four founding DTES communities – Indigenous, Japanese, Chinese and low-income.
We mirror the entirety of our community: in its beauty and its harshness, its poetry and its frustration. We are activist, reformist and non-violent, critical of the poverty mentality and its handmaiden the charity model. We challenge the clichés visited upon the materially poor. We work from an honour system which assumes the inherent dignity and deservedness of all. We embrace social consciousness and public education, rejecting negativity. We avoid the language of addiction and instead see complex individuals living complex lives. We know that pain is not a contest.
Our allegiance is to the low-income community while welcoming all, offering a distinct opportunity for those with privilege to contribute in creating equitable relationships in a society where everyone is in fact, not equal. We support self-awareness and discourage self-absorption.
As an emerging Neighbourhood House with limited means, we adhere to the principal of ‘cheap ‘n cheerful’ while subscribing to many ‘low tech’ techniques and beauty and fun.
The DTES NH acknowledges and honours the fact that our community
lies within the Traditional Territory of the Coast Salish people.
