Beginning as a small boutique in Downtown Edmonton 10 years ago; Furniture Bank (now FIND Edmonton) saw this massive gap in terms of letting people into their homes. At the time, landlords wouldn’t let people into their homes without furniture… this was unacceptable. So, a bunch of different organizations came together to start the Housing First Program, a program that challenges the idea that a person needs to meet specific criteria before being housed. Today, FIND Edmonton now has an online store, retail space, and donation center – all right here in YEG! Furnishing over 1500 homes in a year, they really are making a huge difference in our community.
Janine, Marketing & Donation Coordinator, let us come by for a tour of FIND’s retail space and donation center to see how it all works. “There are so many different ways to help folks experiencing houselessness; people that work here are impact, people who shop here are impact, and people who donate are impact!”
It all starts when someone donates their items, everything has an initial inspection for pests and to ensure it can be donated. If certain items are not accepted, FIND works with other organizations to ensure items are diverted from the landfill – from scrap metal and electronic recycling to working with other donation centers. Items that can be donated are then cleaned and sorted and moved to either their electrical testing station, soft furniture steaming station, or the Housing First station for certain priority items, then the item is moved into the store and out to the community!
Working with 17 different agencies who make referrals to FIND’s Housing First program, every family/individual part of the program gets an essential package which includes a couch, dresser for every room, kitchen table, pots, pans, food ware, chairs, and TV stand. FIND also receives some government funding for new beds and TVs because not everything can be donated. People can actually see their impact right away when they donate or shop at FIND – they know exactly what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and when they’re doing it.
“Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job”
Supporting around 6-12 move-in furnishings a day, the list for homelessness in Edmonton is hovering at just over 2000 people, which grows and shrinks every year. Prior to Covid, FIND was making good headway when they started to see a lot of folks moving into houselessness in 2020. However, with that though, their response has been so much faster because they are now experts at what they do, they can rapidly respond to uncertainties and emergencies – with a 86% success rate of people staying housed, they are the biggest and baddest furniture bank in all of Canada!
Homelessness affects every possible demographic you can think of so at the end of the day, it is not outlandish to think that anyone at any point can end up in a similar situation. FIND’s goal is to end homelessness, “it’s attainable, we’ve seen many communities being able to do it” says Janine. So, for example, if someone needed to leave a domestic abuse situation, they can stay in a shelter for the night, and that next day supports will be in place for them while FIND furnishes their new home. Ideally, they hope to get to a place where “homelessness is rare, brief, and not reoccurring.”
FIND Edmonton
5120 122 Street, NW, AB
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