When Chad Stump ran for Quesnel city council in 2022, one of his top priorities was Quesnel's unhoused population.
That priority is continuing with his work as executive director of the Echen Society with a plan to construct a shelter to be culturally supportive of Indigenous people who are facing barriers to finding housing.
"We are really trying to understand how we can support and find solutions for this," Stump told The Observer. "It's something that we really want to keep at the forefront of our minds." He said he has lost family members and members of the Indigenous community to homelessness and addictions, which has only increased the Echen Society's drive to support people.
While the society has been working to find ways to support unhoused populations for years, the project to create a shelter is still very early in its development.
"We've been trying to assess how we're going to involve ourselves with the problem and the task. This year through various planning sessions with various people, we've come across a few grants that are available to help us design a plan moving forward," he said. One of the top priorities for the Echen Society is to gather support from, and work collaboratively with the community. "We want to definitely engage to understand more of the feeling of the municipality and to see if we can make it (work)."
In 2023, 59 per cent of Quesnel's unhoused population identified as Indigenous according to a BC Housing report. That's compared to 13 per cent of the overall population. Of that 59 per cent, 64 per cent told BC Housing they have personal or generational experience related to residential schools. That report also said 77 per cent of unhoused people in Quesnel have been in the community for more than five years.
The Echen Healing Society works to support Indigenous people through services like childcare and cultural care.
"We are trying to induce ourselves into the community of Quesnel so we can provide more services than what is currently here right now," Stump said. "I think we have to collaboratively work together and try to understand how we can tackle this situation and be together on it."
The society currently has a paper petition where people can support the project, with plans to launch it online to further inform and gauge support from the community.
