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British Columbia is in the grips of a housing affordability crisis decades in the making. The Province has an ambitious plan to tackle the crisis through the largest investment in housing affordability in B.C.’s history. Tasked with building tens of thousands of homes in hundreds of communities is BC Housing, the agency responsible for developing, managing, and administering a wide range of subsidized housing and homelessness services across the province. BC Housing doesn’t do this alone, they work with hundreds of partners. In this podcast, you’ll hear from those tackling the crisis head on.
This is a model that needs to be scaled up.
This is a model that is transportable, that can be tailored, whether you're urban, rural,
northern or coastal little community.
And I think about what if my mom had had this, you know?
A home.
It's something we all need.
But for too many, having a safe place to make a home is out of reach.
The challenges can seem insurmountable.
And yet, each and every day,
people are coming together to provide safe, quality, and affordable housing for those in
need.
Welcome to Let's Talk Housing.
I'm your host, Mita Naidu.
Today we're joined by Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi Executive Director of the Aboriginal Coalition
to End Homelessness, or ACEH.
Fran and her team have been transforming how housing can be more than shelter.
It can be a space of belonging, healing, and cultural connection.
Today we'll explore ACEH's island-wide housing ecosystem.
their wraparound supports, and we will briefly touch on a new project, Sacred Cradle
House.
It's a place that's creating a home for mothers and families in a deeply grounded way.
But before we begin, I'd like to respectfully acknowledge that I am recording from the
territories of the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Tsleil-Waututh nations.
For transparency, this episode is being recorded in October 2025 and reflects the issues
and priorities of that time.
Fran?
Welcome to Let's Talk Housing.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Before we dive into the story of housing though and all the great work you're doing, I'd
like to start our chat with learning a bit about your story.
There really are so many ways that people carry their stories and identities.
I'd love to hear about anything that feels important to you and this chat and that you'd
like to share.
Thank you.
Well.
uh First of all, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm on the Songhees territory right now and
that the coalition's work primarily at this time takes place on Lekwungen-speaking
peoples' territory of Esquimalt and Songhees.
um My name is Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi, as you said.
The elders in my community still call me Zana'u.
I'm Kwagyot Lenguskimuk from Northern Vancouver Island.
I've been working on Coast Salish territory for over 25 years, seven years with the
Hussanich at their adult education center, and then just over five years as the executive
director of the Office of Indigenous Affairs for the University of Victoria.
And in fact, I was on leave to work on my PhD.
from UVic when I was um approached by the ED from the Greater Victoria Coalition to End
Homelessness.
And he asked if I could help.
He said, what I loved is he actually said, all I know is I don't know what to do.
And that really warmed my heart.
And he said, we've tried to get First Nations leaders.
to the table, we've gone out to visit people in person, but we can't seem to make the
connection to get the leaders to the table to talk about the disproportionate number of
Indigenous people that are unhoused in Victoria.
And he asked if I would help.
And that's where it all began.
That was at the end of 2015.
I said, yes, I would, um particularly just because of my
my background in my work.
I was also a chief of my community uh in Coatzino.
So I did have uh some networks there.
ah My work in Indigenous post-secondary education connections provincially and nationally.
so I said, yes, I will do that.
But I don't believe it should be limited to conversations in Victoria.
I would venture to guess that the unhoused population, indigenous population here in
Victoria, primarily comes from Vancouver Island, of course elsewhere, but that was my
theory.
And so I set about, uh started on the north end of the island and worked my way south and
talked to...
elected chiefs, hereditary chiefs, counselors, elders, housing managers, on reserve,
Indigenous organizations off reserve.
And that's how it all came together.
Symbolically signed a drum with a statement in the Esquimalt Longhouse hosted by the late
great chief Andy Thomas.
And that was the moment of
change and standing up and saying, we're going to have conversations.
We're going to seek solutions and gather baseline data.
That's how the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness came to be.
But within two years of starting, we knew we had to lead the process.
Not above, not behind, not in front, but shoulder to shoulder with the Greater Victoria
Coalition, which
became the Alliance to End Homelessness, I believe their name changed too.
And I'll just end this part with sharing something very personal, but it certainly has
rooted me to this work.
And it was the very first meeting when I hit the ground running, basically the only
employee for this.
ah
beginning little embryo of an organization and I held my first focus group.
I wasn't sure how many people would come, held it at our place and had a pretty good
turnout.
And I went to introduce myself and before I knew it, I was just sobbing, just this kind of
primal sobbing and then it spilled out of me, you know, and I realized I had buried it
for.
so many years and just put it out of my mind.
But I was raised by my aunt and uncle because we had lost my own mother to the streets of
the East side of Vancouver.
And that was my personal moment of awareness, epiphany, whatever you might want to call
it.
And I realized that this wasn't going to be a job, but a calling from creator.
And that was my moment.
And that's when I resigned from my very uh great senior level job at the University of
Victoria, starting the Office of Indigenous Affairs in the First People's House.
But I knew.
And so I haven't looked back.
And yeah, that was our beginning.
Thank you, Fran, for sharing such a deeply personal and
Conscious introduction your sense of purpose and your sense of commitment and your sense
of Passion for the work you do is clear.
I think you have to have that when you're working in these kinds of scenarios m and these
kinds of situations Your leadership has Clearly moved the organization in the last ten
years into reimagining housing as a place of belonging and healing And your story plays a
part of that
Could you share how that vision has kind of morphed into 2025?
Like what is ACH's mandate today across Vancouver Island?
Well, the original group that made up our board of directors from the three tribal groups
as well as Métis Nation, Victoria, had a vision that
Our people needed to be reconnected.
From the very beginning, they knew this is more than housing.
There are so many different trajectories that led Indigenous people to the streets, and we
needed to unravel that.
Thankfully, in 2016,
Our previous mayor here in Victoria, Mayor Lisa Helps, who was always a huge champion for
our work, she pulled together what she called the priority one task force.
All the big guns were at that table, you know, whether it be Island Health, our chief of
police, Del Manic, CRD, BC Housing, um Judge Quants was at the table.
So
These were decision makers, know, people who could influence change.
And I was invited to that table, but we were brand new.
I don't think I even had an office yet.
And I was asked, are you able to help of the 74 people identified?
These are the city's highest risk, most vulnerable, had quite a lengthy checklist of
how that was determined from high addictions, chronic alcoholism, mental health, violence,
in and out of corrections, and more.
Of the 74, 20 self-identified as Indigenous.
And so I was asked, could we help, that there would be some funding for programming and
they would find the 20 housing units.
And I said, yes.
as long as I have the room, the latitude to do it our way.
And what I meant by that was through an Indigenous lens with elders and with culture.
And that's where everything took off from and where we are today is based on what we
learned from that original three-year pilot project.
And I just...
kind of hand-picked people that I thought could play a significant role in helping me
build culturally supportive housing.
I knew it had to be culturally supportive.
Not supportive, culturally supportive.
So I brought in an anti-position, an elder who was central to our work.
And in fact, we now call her our lighthouse.
When the ships get caught up in the raging sea, they can always see that way home and
that's who our anti-glow is.
Brought in cultural mentors to do work around land-based crafts, painting, their canoeing,
all kinds of things that really grounded them in who they are.
And that was a missing piece for them and something that they reached their hands out and
embraced a missing part in our our city.
And I think across the country, I think sometimes we think, if we do a drumming class on a
Wednesday, we're we're providing culture.
But no, we're not.
It is connected to an epistemology, way of life.
and teachings across the board.
And that's what we began to incorporate from prayer to brushing off um to stories about
granny and teachings and berry picking and canning and all of those things that are
outside of, guess, the norm, you know, life skills and trauma informed and the language
that we use.
It really was about a way of life.
feasting together, language, et cetera.
Midway through that uh pilot, I had to do an interim report and we actually produced a
wonderful video where we interviewed some of the participants.
And what we mainly learned, you can't quantify or qualify love, but that's what they were
bringing forward.
They felt loved.
They felt safe.
They didn't feel judgment.
Another thing we learned is the unique situation of our Indigenous women, how they get
isolated.
It was an eye-opener for me.
But I learned quickly, this is way beyond housing.
Although we aspire to Housing First principles, this is about strengthening Indigenous
self-identity, creating that sense of place.
connection to family, to ancestral community, family reunification because many had
children in care.
So that's how culturally supportive housing started.
However, it's not the same that we're experiencing.
So I just took that next step.
I called elders and knowledge keepers together from across Vancouver Island.
We spent two and a half days.
I said, what does harm reduction mean to you?
And I won't go into the findings of the two and a half days, but it was that moment that
led me to develop what we now work with, which is called the dual model of housing care.
And one pillar is culturally supportive housing.
The second pillar is decolonized harm reduction, deeply rooted in land-based healing and
with clear
pathways to healing and recovery.
Is this a model you've created yourself?
Wow.
Okay.
Okay.
And the pathways to healing and recovery, we are very cognizant that most, not that they
will just not take that step.
Some cannot take that step.
But we also approach this with the knowledge that we may be the last place on earth for
some of them.
And I just came out of an in-service this morning training our new staff.
We do it every quarter.
And that's what I said.
You have to realize this could be the last place and how you love and how you care and how
you create that place of dignity for them.
That is a legacy you can leave and really make a difference in lives.
And so from there,
You know, and when the elder said to me, harm reduction means nothing to us, that's not
our language.
But Fran, if you're asking how do we carry all of our people, each one forward towards
healing, making sure no one's left behind.
Then that's the journey you're on and you find the ways along that pathway on what's
needed for each person.
And it's about love.
Again, we created a video on that as well.
And those elders back in 2018 gave me five things to pursue.
Continue to pursue culturally supportive housing.
We need something for chronic alcoholics as well because we were only hearing on the news
about the opioid crisis and not those we were losing to chronic alcoholism too often.
Align.
uh
Western and traditional health in our programs.
One alone cannot do it and we have to work together.
um And they said create healing communities, which is now morphed into our land-based
healing camps.
They said, bring them outside of the noise to our territories where we have sacred places,
we have healing places, we have traditional plants and medicines.
So we go out to all three tribal groups and that is where we're seeing the magic so
central to restoration.
Oh, I have so many stories on land base, but I know we want to talk about housing today,
but the model's important because we first strengthen self-identity while we're creating a
sense of place and belonging.
From there, we're transmitting skills, basic Indigenous skills and life skills, how to cut
a fish and barbecue it, how to skin a deer, not waste anything, make sure you tan the hide
and build a drum.
And what happens there is there is this natural doorway to a sense of purpose.
It's been missing.
Their purpose has been survival.
What soup line do I go to now?
Right.
And when you've been doing that for how many years, you don't have a sense of place or
purpose.
Once we see the sense of purpose come into play, it's amazing because family
reunification, reconnection back to community.
But the biggest thing, because I heard this, many of them said,
I wasn't able to dream anymore, but they get to a point where they again, they begin to
dream.
They begin to dream about a future.
What a privilege.
Oh, yeah.
It's such a privilege to take that, you know, take that on the dream.
Yeah.
I mean, it's something as an immigrant settler, I've provided my children, but it's such a
privilege.
Yes.
Not everyone has the ability to dream.
Right.
And how do you dream when you're trying to survive or you're in a cubby on the streets or,
know?
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to know a bit about your Culturally Aligned Integrated Support Program.
Is this based in what you've been describing?
So the Culturally Aligned Integrated Support is probably at the closer to the end of our,
the continuum that we have been able to develop.
you know, from working with those living rough or on the street, you know, through
outreach and our storefront services, et cetera.
And then, you know, shelters and all the way up.
So about two and a half years ago, I was approached.
There was representation from B.C.
Housing, Island Health, Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.
And I was asked if I would help to frame a model through an Indigenous lens that dealt
with rental supplements um for independent market housing.
So that's why I'm saying it's at the end of the continuum.
And also, what kind of supports, what kind of wraparound supports would work?
After a little bit of back and forth and modifications to the proposal, they agreed that
we couldn't just pilot in an urban setting because the goal was to share the model
provincially in the future, potentially.
And so an urban setting doesn't tell the whole story.
So what I proposed was we would uh expand to Port Hardy, north end of the island.
would represent remote and then Port Alberni would be more rural and then we would be
urban.
So the first year we implemented our program and I believe we had about 50 rental
supplements and wraparound supports with some pretty good results.
The second year we expanded to Port Hardy and Port Alberni.
We're now in the third and final year to wrap up the model.
And it's actually mind blowing.
But the main takeaway for me is we have a 94 % housing retention rate right now in that
program.
OK, I don't know.
I'm not comparing it to anything right now, but
I think that's outstanding and I think it's quite unheard of.
And I wasn't sure when I took this on, I wasn't sure we would even have the people for
that part of the continuum.
And so it centers on eviction prevention as well as reducing uh homelessness.
The beauty of that over time is we can then
target people in supportive and culturally supportive housing, work with them to advance
them to the CASE program because what we're ultimately doing through that positive flow is
creating new spaces for unhoused in culturally supportive or supportive housing.
So I really think we're onto something.
A lot of magic is happening again.
Yeah, I'm really proud of it.
You should be.
That sounds amazing.
And I don't know the stats myself, but 94 % sounds incredible.
When we think of some of these culturally supportive, innovative, and grounded and
traditional ideas that you're bringing together in one space, tell me about Sacred Cradle
House, because that is another example of your innovation.
Well, it's quite new.
And
Just a little bit of background.
So one of my directors took time off to work on her masters and she did her practicum with
her way home.
And of course we would check in often, see how she's doing and she would tell me some of
what she was learning.
As an example, over 40 % of the users of the services were Indigenous girls or women.
Well, we're we only comprise about 5 % of the general population in Victoria, and it's
even more in Vancouver.
At that time, I believe don't fully quote me, but I believe she said 52 % for Sheway in
Vancouver, similar services to her way home were indigenous girls and women.
mean, I mean, just just for people who aren't aware of what that means, there's an over
representation.
of a certain group in a population and that indicates all kinds of things.
But I'll let you continue.
absolutely.
I mean, if you're 5 % of the population in Victoria, but you're over 40 % using those
services.
Wow.
And so the more I heard, the more I knew it was part of our long range mandate.
We have a title.
or a mandate to end homelessness on Vancouver Island.
By year five in working to get our housing up and going, get our programs up and going, I
knew very clearly we're not going to even make a dent in this if we're not doing something
for young people that are aging out of the foster care system, many hitting the streets,
many we're going to uh inherit.
And we want to be able to and must reach them before they become street entrenched, before
they're groomed for certain.
There's a lot of stuff in that downtown ecosystem and the young people are very, very
vulnerable.
And so we knew we had to do something there.
So we opened a youth house.
So we have a six bed uh youth house really
cool stuff happening there as well.
I was asked to present at the First Nations Health Authority Wellness Conference and I was
talking about our five-year housing plan, our housing strategy, and I mentioned this need
as being one of the things that I was going to work towards that we needed to figure this
out.
We didn't have experience.
never
ever had a mandate for children when we started.
And after I wrapped up, a woman came up to me and she was, I believe with UBC Women's
Hospital and PHSA.
And she just said, hey, know, everything you're saying is what we're learning.
We work with moms that have lost their children because of addictions and no homes and we
have to talk.
We...
um
made an agreement commitment to talk again and literally within an hour she was wanting to
support us to hold two pilot sites.
So we supported two moms and two babies.
Well, it has been a beautiful joyous ride to watch what can happen with having the elder
auntie go in
teaching cooking, parenting classes, helping the moms through addictions and just other
traumas and all of those things that came along with it.
One of those little babies was from Kwakwaka’wakw territory and needed to go for a
cultural event and Auntie Glow went up with the mother and the little one and...
gutter ceremonial, hair cutting, and just all of those things.
We've watched them grow from their first Christmas to their first pumpkin patch and their
swimming lessons with mom.
And you can't help but see that and know and think more than know what can be done, but
think about what would the result have been without this intervention.
A mom who is using on the street, goes into the hospital, has no home to go to, gives
birth, generally baby is lost.
so then of course, then I start uh BC Housing, help, Heidi, Jen.
The idea of centering mothers in this particular project.
The idea of centering mothers and matriarchs and elders and newborns is such a powerful
one.
I really just kind of, I know it's new and we're just touching on it, but it's something
that resonated so much with me as a mother, but also like the way my culture functions.
To have these kinds of voices and people shape the home.
What do you think this is going to do for families in the years ahead?
these kinds of projects?
mean, what I hope happens is that we stay within the vision of the elders um and the
leaders that we're creating pathways out.
We're creating pathways to healing and recovery, strengthening Indigenous self-identity
and who they are.
Because without that,
There's very, very little that they can be housed, but void of their spirit.
And so has justice been fulfilled?
No, we want to have, especially people that have gone through our housing become our
future workers.
So um we need to look at ways that can.
be loving, caring, embracing, and launch these individuals to be the best that they can be
and reconnected to who they are.
Because in many ways that's what's been taken and we have to give it back.
We can't talk about reconciliation and housing without looking at the whole.
And in fact, there was one woman on our pilot land-based healing camp
We had more people that wanted to go than I had room on the van.
So I was interviewing people and I had this little lady there.
And I said, why do you want to go on the land-based healing camp?
And she sat for a moment and then she just looked me right in the eye and she said, I want
to find my spirit again.
Yeah, that's a heavy, heavy moment.
And you've used a certain word throughout our conversation that connects immediately with
this for me, and that is love.
And I don't often hear that in conversations about housing, but it's really the foundation
of it all.
It's the seed.
It is.
And when I think about your projects.
Your leadership and your love shines clearly, but I know it takes collaboration.
You're working within a certain system, right?
What has partnership been ah with BC Housing and other organizations?
What has that taught you about how systems can listen and respond to Indigenous-led
solutions like yours?
Partnerships in the end are difficult to come by.
that really are mutually beneficial, but you begin to know who your allies are.
And BC Housing from day one, whether Sheila, when we were developing our model for our
women's house, Spocken House, was so supportive about us changing things, kind of turning
it on its head, even.
job titles, we didn't want the same titles.
We said, no, no, we need an auntie.
We don't need a this.
No, no, we need a granny.
And just listening and kind of what's the difference?
Yeah, you're right.
Like you tell us what you need and we'll come together.
And Heidi Hartman has been
Amazing.
Such a loss for us.
Great for her doing, you know, and others doing regional work.
But B.C.
Housing, three women that understood, hey, there's something here.
Let's create space.
And let's not be part of a system or a paternalistic attitude.
Perpetuate that attitude that we know best.
Let's try.
And so that's been a beauty.
We had to very carefully and purposefully choose where we were going to give our time.
so we created our own.
We went out and we went and surveyed, mean, we surveyed 127 street family, unhoused people
in the downtown core.
And we asked them, where do you go for your physical support, emotional, mental and
spiritual?
Why do you choose to go there?
What are your experiences there?
What's still missing?
And we learned a lot.
Over 200 support services were listed.
I didn't even know we had that in the downtown core.
But what I did is I took the top 10 and invited them to meet with me out in Goldstream
just around the fire and to have a conversation.
I let them know.
You were identified by the Indigenous street community as either all four places or two or
more.
And can you be part of a collaborative response network where we all work together because
if they trust you, I trust you.
And what was really interesting, before I let them know that, I asked them, why do you
think Indigenous people from the street community access your services?
They were so closely aligned to what the street family said.
And, you know, whether it was access and non-judgment.
And so we still work with that collaborative response network and have a, you know, we
have a big table of partnerships.
And as I mentioned, our mayor, Lisa, our ex mayor, Lisa Helps, was a huge uh champion for
our work.
She works at BC Housing now.
by the way.
Yes.
Yeah.
There's more of us that you are in relationship with now.
Yes.
Island Health has also been, you know, of great help.
Of course, it's a huge system and with still some structural challenges from an Indigenous
perspective.
But again, it comes down to those key individuals in positions who are willing to say,
Okay, well, let's try.
We don't know how or what that's about, but let's try culture.
And that wasn't easy because there was no way those things were moving when we first
started and where we have come has been unbelievable.
I want to segue into our into our final question.
Based on that, I think this trajectory over these last 10 years is incredible.
What are you imagining for the generation of children and families living in ACEH homes?
What do you hope they'll remember?
What's the legacy?
What I hope they'll remember is who they are as Indigenous people, where they come from,
what their teachings are.
and reciprocity because I hope they become the givers to that next generation, those role
models, those ferocious advocates.
sometimes think relationships are stronger than the systems we live in.
They are.
Right?
I mean, your examples speak to that.
I feel so hopeful.
And that's why my chair and I were just in Ottawa and we're talking to MPs.
We're meeting with MPs and we're saying, listen, this is a model that needs to be scaled
up.
This is a model that is transportable, that can be tailored, whether you're urban, rural,
Northern or coastal little community.
And I think about what if my mom had had this?
Yeah.
Your hope and your dedication and your love is like what keeps people like me going.
Yeah.
Thanks for uh helping to share the story.
There's lots of promising practice.
We don't have everything down, know, sacred cradle.
There's so much still to build.
It's a whole new niche area.
excited for you and whatever the future holds for you, Fran.
Your work really definitely reminds me that housing can be a beginning.
a place where family and healing and community can meet.
But before we close, if you could describe in one sentence what home means in your
context, in this context, what would it be?
I'll quickly first tell you what the street family said when I asked that question.
More often than not, they said home is where my community is because if there's a death, I
say, I'm going home.
If there's a wedding, I'm invited to a wedding at home.
So that's very, very different worldview.
Home, though, in our culturally supportive housing is somewhere safe, filled with smells
of food, drumming in the kitchen, laughter in the hallway, therapeutic garden, drum
making, everything that we have in Indigenous communities, an auntie, a granny, an uncle.
And love.
And love.
And access to traditional foods is a big one.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
Thank you again, Fran.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
everyone listening.
All right.
If you'd like to learn more about the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness and their
culturally supportive housing model, visit a ceh.ca or bchousing.org backslash podcast.
To learn more about BC Housing, including how to apply for subsidized housing in British
Columbia, visit www.bchousing.org.
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