Grant: Project Grant

This project upholds the newly formed Uya'am Gaak Cultural Society-an unprecedented solely Indigenous-governed harm reduction organization working for SRO tenants in colonial Vancouver's Downtown Eastside-and their goal to gather and amplify the stories of Indigenous Single Room Occupancy hotel tenants organizing against colonial violence manifested in exclusionary health systems, extreme housing exploitation, and a deadly toxic drug supply crisis. Uya'am Gaak Cultural Society was established in 2023 with the support of our previous CIHR-funded research within the context of a chaotic and harmful pandemic environment. As an Indigenous insurgency against a colonial non-profit landscape that often places Indigenous frontline workers in harm's way, Uya'am Gaak centres culturally-specific and gender-inclusive approaches to healing, self-determination, and housing justice within the rapidly changing context of the Downtown Eastside. Our project follows decolonial and resurgence-based Indigenous research methodologies informed by anti-racist and critical Indigenous feminist approaches to gathering stories of wellness, self-determination, and community flourishing as told by Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers who call the Downtown Eastside home. In this way, we are working against an overgeneralizing deficit-based lens in colonial health research that positions Indigenous identity as a risk factor and masks the white supremacist, cis-heteropatriarchal institutions that have left an indelible legacy of Indigenous people's structural oppression. With an interdisciplinary team under the direction and guidance of Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community organizers of Nisga'a, Cree, Sto:lo, Haida, Heiltsuk, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Métis ancestry, our research provides a protective shield from over a century of damage-centred health system failures against this vibrant, 2000+ strong Indigenous community and the larger multiracial landscape of the Downtown Eastside.