Going the Extra Mile (GEM)

What Going the Extra Mile supports...


The 127 Society for Housing The society has built or retrofitted three apartment buildings in Vancouver’s Downtown South. Jubilee House (1986), Brookland Court (1989), and The Wellspring (1997) provide decent, affordable housing for 270 low-income residents. The society supports residents’ personal lives with the community worker program. Tenants have an alternative to the dreary hotel rooms common to downtown Vancouver. They appreciate the difference: “Now, with a kitchen and the food store, I can eat better and more cheaply.” “I am encouraged to have my cat – it’s important to my emotional health.” “I needed some peace and quiet, and that’s what I found here when I finally got to move in.” The society has teamed with the St. James Community Services Society to develop and operate a new project for independent, supportive housing. With housing for low-income people disappearing in Vancouver, support for The 127 Society for Housing is needed more than ever. The Street Outreach Initiative The Street Outreach Initiative places the Rev. Matthew Johnson on the streets of the Downtown Eastside to minister to marginalized persons struggling with many challenges: addiction, mental illness, poverty, homelessness, disability, isolation, or circumstantial disaster. He has developed relationships with well over 250 ‘regulars’, and made contact with over 1,500 others. He listens to their stories, daily struggles and successes. He prays for them and with them. And, if needed, leads them to food, shelter, or a service agency that can help. He reminds them of God’s loves and that Jesus cared about those whom society had rejected. And that, like them, the Son of God was poor, and at times, homeless. That he too suffered adversity, rejection, hunger, and pain. He reveals that all human beings are created in the image of God, therefore sharing a dignity that is God-bestowed, and not earned. And that, in the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, God offers us redemption and new life. Through your support you are enabling the Street Outreach Initiative to help people of the Downtown Eastside to move towards wholeness, with spiritual and moral support. Compassionate – he sees the hurt and pain and he deals with it on a different level…he looks at us as people, as God’s children.’ - Words of a DTES resident. The Coming Home Society Every day at the Coming Home Society's Young Wolves Lodge, a warm and welcoming home, young Aboriginal women are working hard to build new lives for themselves and their children. They have escaped abuse and exploitation on the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and are receiving support to live alcohol and drug-free lives. Through the four-month residential program and year of post-graduation support, they are acquiring the skills to live successfully in the community and regain custody of their children. For the first time, they are living the traditional values and spiritual practices of their culture and are proud to be Aboriginal. · Victoria regained custody of her son and has been clean and sober for three years. She recently held a fund-raiser and collected $700 for Young Wolves Lodge. · Dani reconnected with the women of Young Wolves Lodge at a Pow-wow in Kamloops in August. She encouraged their healing journeys and shared a special cake marking her two year date of sobriety. · Cait returned to Young Wolves Lodge in the spring - this time as a counselor! She loves helping other young women in recovery. The Coming Home Society is doing God's work of saving and transforming lives. Each mother or mother-to-be, each child, becomes a building block in the creation of a new and healthy Aboriginal family.