A man from Peace River is on a mission to tackle homelessness in his community. President of Peace River’s new homeless foundation called PEACE (Providing and Ensuring Access to a Caring Environment) Marc Boychuk was inspired to help the community’s less fortunate after a Victoria film producer named Krista Loughton screened her documentary on homelessness at the theatre in Peace River.
“After being extremely touched, I started to get involved and see what I can do about the homeless in our town,” says Boychuck.
Boychuk began his work with the community after a meeting with Peace River’s homeless foundation, Purple Rung. On January 14th, 2018, he decided to raise awareness about the struggles Peace River’s homeless face by spending two days living on the streets. Boychuk wandered the streets without a cent or any food, and visited local businesses to raise awareness of his cause.
“It was definitely eye-opening. I thought I had compassion before,” says Boychuk. “On the first night, I slept in the Post Office by myself. It was cold, I had two pairs of pants on, warm clothes and nice winter boots, but still didn’t sleep a wink because it was just way to cold. I was exhausted.”
Boychuk brought a lot of attention to the topic of homelessness, and after his first-hand experience of being on the streets, he began researching what methods of dealing with homelessness was working in other communities. He found that the best thing other communities were doing was having different foundations pool their resources together to tackle homelessness as one. Boychuk then took this idea to town council, which was met with support from the councillors.
PEACE meets regularly with the Aboriginal Interagency Committee, the Sagitawa Friendship Society, and the Peace River Women’s Shelter, which Boychuk says are doing a tremendous amount for people who are homeless, about to be homeless, or at risk of being homeless.
Right now PEACE’s business plan and proposal are pretty much complete, and the foundation is now on the RCMP advisory board.
Even though PEACE is still in its early stages, Boychuck explains they’re already seeing the impacts it’s having on the community. He singles out one example, where a local man was on the verge of being evicted. After Boychuk investigated the man’s situation and talked to the man’s social worker to confirm the story was true, he put a call out to community members to see if anyone could offer help, and within 30 minutes, the community came up with the money to pay the man’s rent. Boychuk’s work with the man continued, and he’s happy to announce the man found a job and his place is secure.
Boychuk says Purple Rung took a count of homeless people in Peace River, and the report shows over 80 people in the community don’t have a place to call home.
Despite the worrying number of homeless people in Peace River, the community is seeing the affects PEACE is having on its less fortunate, and Boychuk notes the foundation is getting involved with a number of different groups.
“We take extra coats to the soup kitchen and help ladies move in from the Women’s Shelter who know nobody, and we try to make sure they stay safe and have the things they need.”
Boychuk makes special mention of a program by Dominos Pizza called Take a Slice Out of Hunger. This program allows a customer to choose to pay $3 for a token they can give to someone in need which is redeemable for 2 slices of pizza.
PEACE is still new to the community, but Boychuk notes that the organization has big plans for the future, including its own shelter.
“As long as there’s people out there that need help, we’re going to stay as a foundation, we’re going to keep raising money, we’re going to keep raising awareness,” says Boychuk. “We’re in it for the long haul.”
Follow PEACE’s mission to take on homelessness at their Facebook page here.
~JD
