ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep. 50 Kajin Goh, The Chuan Society

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Ask Salt Spring Answered talks to Kajin Goh, Chair of the Chuan Society about the new Hearth pilot project at the portable at the former Phoenix School site on Drake Road, Salt Spring Island

you're listening to episode 50 of ask salt spring answered in which we talked to kajin go who's the chair of the chuan society about the pilot project Hearth, which is going to be opening at a portable classroom in the old Phoenix School on Drake Road on Salt Spring Island. You're listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered. Damien Inwood here speaking with Kajin Goh, who is the chair of the Chuan Society. Welcome, Kajin. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we were in a session with Ask Salt Spring where we were talking about the exciting news about the new Hearth program, which is going into a portable at the old Phoenix school site on Drake Road. Tell me a bit more about that, Kajan. So Hearth is a vision

we've been working on for a long time for salt spring, especially thinking and considering what a number of our population go through during the wintertime. So ostensibly, you know, people who are less well sheltered or completely unsheltered and sleeping rough have a really hard go of it when the weather turns. And so this is actually an evolution, I would say, of what happened when we ran a warming space to address those needs about three years ago. But you know, since then, we've been not wanting to repeat what we went through the warming space

at that time, we were a bit of a rogue rogue project some people would say it was a grassroots project but we set up on crd land and we went through a whole three four months of relocating and evictions while we were trying to negotiate use of the land so the warming space is an evolution of what happened then because now we are speaking with the CRD principally because there's the LCC. And since last year, we started making proposals, trying to find some kind of way to address winter needs. And this year, the decommissioned Phoenix School was being offered by SD64. The Chuan Society did apply for that, and we didn't get the contract to lease and went to the CRD. And then I was spoken, had a conversation with a couple of our LCC members

and they suggested making an application for the Phoenix School. It's been a lot of back and forth, a lot of delegations to the LCC and written proposals, but we finally got the keys to the LCC and written proposals. But we finally got the keys to the portable at the Phoenix School just on Wednesday. And so we're going to be opening up a community drop-in space. It's a place where people can come in and be warm, sheltered, dry, but where there's always going to be a pot of coffee and tea on the boil, where there'll probably be a pot of soup, but also where we can run we could say

programmings but we're now now think of them as offerings of art making music making creative writing support circles and healing circles all kinds of things it's it's we really look at it as a co-creation with the community and we're pretty excited to get started right now this is a four month contract right until april and this is sort of a pilot project isn't it really to see how this is going to work because there has been some pushback obviously from when you try to i think there was a suggestion at one point the the lcc you a room at Sims here in the former middle school. And there was apparently a lot of parents who objected to that for whatever reason. I know Gail Baker said that it got quite upsetting for her to hear some of the comments that people had about it. And this kind of relates to what

you were talking about, the level of polarization between some people on Salt Spring and marginalized people. Talk a little bit about that, maybe. Yeah. At the time that we started making a proposal for Phoenix, we had heard from CRD staff that that wouldn't be possible because of the timeline of their rental and leasing of that space from SD64. At which point we were offered a room, a smaller room at Sims, which is on a kind of split level, second floor. And, you know, it wasn't ideal, but we were willing to go there. We just wanted to make sure that we had some sort of resource for the winter and as we got ahead in the negotiations that news was made public and there was uh i was a little taken aback by the

the response there was a almost immediate uproar that this was going to be, make the building unsafe for kids' programs. I think that's principally, I think, where the alarm bells were being sounded. I thought they were quite alarmist, and I felt a little bit as if there were some presumptions about what this project would be like, what it would mean for the space. And so there was blowback. I think the LCC

fielded a lot of letters and complaints through that. I was a little disappointed because, you know, in my mind, it's really important to have integrated spaces. That was one of the aims of the project, not just to provide resources and a warm, safe space for community members, but also to invite it to be a more kind of lateral and open integrated space, a point of contact. And I think what I found unfortunate, I would say, is that there was kind of a polarization I could sense in the kind of fear that people were feeling about sharing this space

with people who are, you know, I guess the term would be marginalized, perceived as marginalized, and the presumption that somehow the environment would be less safe, and I don't think that's true. You know, in this meeting at ASK, you know, one of the things that I talked about, it's like a lot of the people who would be using the space are themselves parents, right? And that, you know, for me,

the Sims building is about community spaces and we were just going to be another community space. I don't know why we would have been singled out. You know, we're not printmaking. We're not transitions. But at the same time, these are people who are part of our community. And so I felt like some of that, the measure of that response and how, I don't want to say histrionic,

but how pronounced people were to try to make sure it didn't happen, it felt like a little bit like we didn't even get the chance to start that it was like still in the cradle it was still in inception phase and then we had that response i mean the the result of that is that crd staff then kind of like backpedaled a bit and made the phoenix space available it was our preferred location which is a better location yeah yeah but um i wasn't't necessarily impressed by the blowback. It's part of the work that Chuan society still wants to push through, which is around stigmatization, around poverty and homelessness

and addictions as well. We don't think those things are furthering the cause. I mean, I guess the concern was alcohol and drug use primarily, as I understood it anyway, which is not something that's going to be going on in this building, right? No, there won't be any open alcohol or drug use. It is, you know, what we want is basically a safe space for people to be able to hang out

and also engage in different kinds of activities whether it's you know um card games or music or uh filmmaking filmmaking yeah we want to start a filmmaking program and screen movies so yeah now also gabriel Kitchen, which you're involved with as well, which is currently in the Anglican Church, I think, isn't it? Yeah, we've been operating out of the Anglican Parish kitchen and hall since February of this year. But you have to leave there, I think, because they're doing some renos. So you're going to move that into this space as well for a short while. Is that right? The plan, tentative plan, I still need to confirm and I'm speaking to the the team of Gabriel's kitchen is

to transition the kitchen into a different format. I mean principally the launch of Gabriel's kitchen was to address food insecurity and we do these large dinners serving upwards of 50 sometimes 60 60 people. And we felt we could dial it back a little bit and integrate it into the program of the hearth, meaning that we could be serving smaller meals like a soup and a main dish. And we've been coordinating with other people who are providing food in the Ganges core. And there's two more days where there's nothing being served Tuesday and Saturday. So our proposition is to bring Gabriel's Kitchen to the hearth in a more modest way, smaller crews,

and do three dinners or meals through the week. Of course, I think there will be food prep happening there through the community who are going to be using the space. So there's going to be induction plates and all the resources we need to set up a kitchen. Right. And then, of course, what happens? Does it then move back to the church

when their reno is finished? Is that the plan? That's probably what's going to happen. I mean, I think we've been developing a really good relationship with the Anglican Parish. The refurbished, upgraded kitchen is going to be a commercial-grade kitchen. So it would be actually really great to cook in there.

We're going to see. I think we're going to play it by ear because one of the things, as well as a pilot project, four months, our contract with the CRD at the Phoenix Portable will last till the end of March, at which point we're going to be watching to see if they're going to be making an RFP, a request for proposals for the rental of the Phoenix building itself, the upper floor. I know that there's a number of community partners

and groups interested in that space, but I'm hoping that the hearth will not only continue but expand as a program into a more general community space. That's what we're hoping to happen in April. We also have a long-term plan for Gabriel's Kitchen to one day be running on a dedicated site in its own dedicated kitchen. We're not sure how long that's going to take to develop,

but we'll see as we go along. But I understood from what Gail said that in April, the CRD maintenance people are moving into the school. Is that right, for a couple of years or something? Well, the CRD site maintenance is moving into the portable, I think, in April. And they're also moving into the basement or main floor of the school building.

But the one thing which will be retained as a community resource and that they'll ask for submissions is for the upper floor of the main building. A lot of the rest of the site is going to be site maintenance. So you would have the opportunity to bid in an RFP for that upper floor then? That's what it's looking like for next year. Right. So what will you do if that doesn't pan out? Where will you go after the end of March?

We don't know yet. You know, the one thing about Salt Spring is there's not many spaces that are affordable, rentable, and suitable for community projects like this. We're very attracted to Phoenix School, partly because of its legacy as a school, but also because of the environment there. It's a really beautiful spot. And also, I would say the social ecology of that area,

that there's going to be the BC housing, 34 units or more happening right next door. That's going to be supportive housing. And we do feel like this could be a really good adjunct to the supportive housing by offering a place where there's culture, there's activities, there's community building. I think that would extend to the whole street of Drake Road, the Salt Spring Commons, and just by proximity, the community of Ganges. Right.

Now, just to be clear, this isn't an overnight facility. There's going to be nobody staying in the portable after 8 p.m., and your operating hours are from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., right? Yep. Seven days a week. Seven days a week. Yep. So anybody who has no place to go can go and hang out there in the warm and get some food and socialize with other people. I mean, that's a very important part of society is communication, isn't it?

Yeah. And you have, I gather, 18 volunteers who are going to be running this center? So far, we've got 18 volunteers signed on. And a lot of them are people we've been working with through Gabriel's Kitchen. Right. A lot of them are core members of the Chuan Society, council members. You know, the way it will be operating is there will always be a key holder at the space and a space steward. And so we're going to be doing

rotating blocks uh through the day and probably nine to eight is quite a long operating time so we're looking at three blocks and so um we've been making a call out for volunteers also for resources uh you know until we confirmed the space we didn't really start any major fundraising we did apply for some grants and it looks like we're receiving at least one of them um but we do want to fund this project and and to some degree it does we do need to look at it as a space which needs to be staffed through the day right so what kind of volunteers do you need um space minders people who are space stewards, meaning that they just help look after the space.

Anyone who's coming in as a volunteer will have some sort of orientation of where the facilities are, what the guidelines are in the space. We do want to have, as I mentioned, programs or offerings happening, as well as what we call a quiet area or just a socialized social area.

So it's mostly going to be making sure the space is clean, where people have questions, where they're looking for, let's say, resources that they can be directed to the right place, making tea. A lot of it will probably also just be hanging out and getting to know people. What would you say to people in the neighborhood who might have concerns about this center? Obviously, if there's confrontations between people or noise or dogs, I know is an issue. We talked about that in the meeting.

Well, you know, one of the things that we really do want to do is speak to the larger community, well to the specific community of Drake Road and get to know our neighbors. That's the first thing. The other thing is that there's always going to be a responsible member on duty at the space and we're happy to share our contact numbers if there are any concerns which need to be addressed at the moment we also have you know a lot of support coming in from people who are trained in conflict resolution people who are psych nurses peer support workers so we're not gonna consider that there won't be you know um needs for conflict resolution and and addressing that but we do have people who are very like experienced in that um the other thing that i'd like to do you know um and i've been suggesting is that as we have our kind of

soft launch we're going to be stocking the place and resourcing it and getting our volunteers together is that we want to have a meet and greet. So what I'm thinking about is some sort of barbecue and food thing where we invite the neighborhood to come check out what we're doing and get to know who we are and if they're interested, get involved as well. All right. Now, if people do want to get involved how do they do that um good ways to get in touch with the chuan society um chuan c-h-u-a-n society at gmail.com um better way is actually um well that's a good way but uh i'm the person who's mostly fielding um calls volunteers and stuff like that.

My own email address is kajin, K-A-J-I-N dot G-O-H, go, at gmail.com. We also have a Facebook page for the hearth. So if you do a search for the hearth on Facebook, it should show up. Okay, great. Well, thanks for coming in, Kajin. All right. Thank you, David. And we'll probably talk to you again soon. Okay, great. Well, thanks for coming in, Kerjan. All right. Thank you, David. We'll probably talk to you again soon. Okay. You've been listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered

on CHIR FM, the voice of the Gulf Islands.