VANCOUVER & CALGARY — As part of the national Churches Listening & Responding to Poverty tour, recent community roundtables in Vancouver and Calgary brought together faith leaders, listening partners, and individuals with lived experience of poverty to confront systemic gaps and reimagine faith-based engagement.
Facilitated by Rev Karen Puddicombe, Associate Secretary Justice and Peace, the sessions highlighted critical infrastructure deficits in urban centers. Participants emphasized that basic survival needs are frequently unmet, pointing to an urgent requirement for secure personal belongings storage, daytime drop-in spaces offering shelter, phone, and laundry access, and reliable hygiene facilities.
Beyond material deficits, conversations focused on systemic inequities and historical harm. Indigenous participants underscored the deep connections between colonization, intergenerational trauma, and homelessness. Attendees also shared personal accounts of sudden financial precarity, illustrating how quickly illness or unforeseen life shifts can push individuals into poverty. Many voiced pain over past experiences in religious settings, citing judgment, conditional aid, anti-LGBTQ+ exclusion, and racial discrimination.
To address these challenges, participants called on faith institutions to move beyond short-term relief toward “co-liberation” and structural justice:
- Systemic Advocacy: Transitioning from passive relief (such as food banks) to active advocacy for living wages, human rights, and social benefit protections.
- Mobilizing Church Assets: Unlocking physical church infrastructure, including gymnasiums and halls, for community kitchens, daytime refuge, and safe shelter.
- Dignified & Inclusive Care: Offering unconditional hospitality that honors autonomy, rejects preachiness or conditional aid, and ensures cultural safety for all.
Participants affirmed that true listening is measured by tangible outcome: “Feeling heard happens when something actually changes.” The gathering closed with a call for faith communities to embrace relational solidarity—walking alongside neighbors in mutual respect, accountability, and shared action.