With a smile on his face, Jeremy hangs up the phone. Another positive conversation with an MLA about improving the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Jeremy is the Coordinator for the Tri-Cities Homelessness and Housing Task Group, a position he started approximately 18 months ago, after volunteering with them.
The Task Group is a collection of agencies, government, public sector organizations, and non-profits from the Tri-Cities, Metro Vancouver, and BC that work together to coordinate a response to people experiencing homelessness, in the area. Jeremy coordinates these meetings and reports back to the Steering Committee.
Right after he started in this role, Jeremy was asked to run the Tri-Cities homeless count. The position involved many facets, such as overseeing volunteers and organizing an 18-hour day of sending people out on routes to survey people experiencing homeless, and dropping those completed surveys off in Surrey.
As Jeremy became more familiar with his role and the issues facing the Tri-Cities, he noticed something. Apart from a local outreach service, there wasn’t a lot of support around youth homelessness. So, last year, he reached out to Covenant House Vancouver (CHV) for their knowledge and expertise. As he prepares for his next meeting, that includes a Zoom attendance from CHV’s director of supported housing, Jeremy takes a sip from his container of chocolate milk, a simple pleasure that he’s always enjoyed. Looking at the container, he thinks back to a time where it was difficult to scrape enough change together to afford such a simple thing.
In the early 2000s, Jeremy was a young man living independently. When he lost his job, Jeremy lost his independence and went to live with his mom and her common law husband. That didn’t last long as there was conflict. Jeremy’s mom kicked him out and he went to live with his aunt. His aunt got him part-time work as a dishwasher. It was a hard job, but a decent working environment. She also got him a second job at another restaurant, owned by the same man, who was a friend of his aunt’s.
This, however, was not a good environment. The chefs bullied the younger staff, including Jeremy. He kept the first job, but didn’t tell his aunt that he left the toxic environment of the second one. When his aunt found out, she kicked him out, which resulted in the loss of the other job.
Not knowing where to turn, he went to the library to look up shelters in the phone book. Unable to find one locally, he went to the counter and asked a staff member if they could help him. During the librarian’s search, CHV kept coming up, which the librarian called, on Jeremy’s behalf. CHV had a space for Jeremy when he needed it most.
When he arrived, Jeremy was given a bed in the Crisis Program. For the first three days, he was in survival mode and didn’t know if he could trust anyone. He assumed that the staff had good intentions, but he needed that time to adjust and let his guard down.
At that time, he had no idea of how long he wanted to stay. “When you’re thinking about only tomorrow, you’re just thinking, ‘Where am I going to sleep?’” Jeremy spent three months in the Crisis Program. During that time, he heard many good things about the Rights of Passage program, where youth could have their own suite and gain independence.
Twenty years ago, there was a prerequisite that youth had to be working part time to get into Rights of Passage. Jeremy found a dishwashing job at an industrial bakery in North Vancouver. It was a trek to get to by transit, but it did get him into the Rights of Passage program.
Once he was in, some fears emerged. The Crisis Program had established routine, which Jeremy found really helpful. However, in the Rights of Passage program, not only was there new staff to trust, but the independence he was given was a mixed blessing. It pushed Jeremy to figure out his own schedule, and he turned to others in the program.
“It took a little while but then I realized that hey, all the other young people in the building are in the same boat as me. They’re no different than me. I found myself trying to make connections all the time.”
What stuck with Jeremy the most, after two decades, was that he believes that the biggest factor in his success was his youth worker, Andrew, who was a “wonderful guy, wonderful man, like a second father figure really.”
Jeremy eventually quit the bakery, but then something unexpected happened. His father, who no one in the family could find for about a year and a half, turned up. His dad was back in his life, and Jeremy made the most of it. His dad visited Jeremy at CHV several times, including once around Christmas time, where a friend took a photo of Jeremy and his father in front of Jeremy’s tree that he was allowed to set up on his floor.
Unbeknownst to Jeremy, that was going to be his father’s last Christmas. “As it turns out, my friend took the last picture I have of my dad. I’m very grateful to my friend because he had no idea that he was taking… I still have the photo. I’m glad about that.”
Jeremy’s father passed away that February, leaving Jeremy totally devastated. According to Jeremy, CHV staff were very accommodating during his grieving. At that point, he met with Andrew daily. He was glad that Andrew got to meet his dad. “They were able to meet, I think on only one occasion, but I was like, my dad and someone I consider a father figure, finally got to meet each other. I think the fact that my dad met Andrew helped me after he passed away, because Andrew got a sense of what my dad was like.”
Eventually, Jeremy enrolled in a skills-development program that helped him land a job. “My time in Rights of Passage was very educational, very illuminating. I learned how to be responsible, which was a key takeaway. The experience was, I would honestly say, transformative for me.”
With staff support and encouragement, Jeremy joined the Downtown Street Voice, a youth advisory committee. “There was a staff advisor to assist us, and we did educational campaigns in the community.” Here Jeremy learned about many elements that he uses all of the time in his current role.
In 2008, Jeremy left the Rights of Passage to live independently. After being supported, he was now completely independent, and he struggled for a while, moving around and trying to find his calling. While online during the pandemic, Jeremy learned about the Tri-Cities Homelessness and Housing Task Group, and also met his partner, who he is with today. This is when things started to fall into place for him.
Jeremy is still learning, but hopes to one day start his own charity that addresses some of the gaps for young people that he sees in the system.
As the meeting starts, Jeremy thinks back to February of 2025, where 15 friends of his, from his time in Rights of Passage, got together for a reunion and the fact that the only reason he applied for the volunteer work that led to this position was because of “the good work and the good people I knew at Covenant House, both fellow youth, and the impact the staff had on me.”
“The support was always there, and it was always without question. And that’s what I want the donors to hopefully understand — that they’re not only providing the funds for a roof over people’s heads and the basic needs that everyone has, but they’re creating a space where something even more important can happen — connection.”