Building Healthy Communities in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with Whole Way House’s Jenny Konkin

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube

There are a few things you should know about Jenny Konkin. She is a 40 under 40 recipient. She comes from a long line of real estate investors. And she loves Vancouver. Jenny sits down with Adam & Matt this week to discuss her path from real estate investor/business person to community builder on the Downtown Eastside, where she works day in, day out with some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.

What led Jenny to shift gears in 2013 to focus all her energy on the not-for-profit organization she co-founded, Whole Way House? How have the challenges facing the Downtown Eastside changed over the last decade & are we in a better place today? What are we as a city getting right and what are we getting wrong when it comes to supporting our city’s most vulnerable populations? And what does effective help actually look like? Listen up Vancouverites!

Discover how Whole Way House is building healthy communities in housing by tackling the heart crisis, not just the housing crisis, in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

What is Whole Way House?

At Whole Way House, we partner with non-profit housing providers to provide onsite community building programs and tenant support services for low-income seniors, veterans, and people in transition out of recovery and homelessness. We want to build healthy communities in housing.

We’re mostly in the Downtown Eastside but are growing across the Lower Mainland. We just had our ten year anniversary.

While Whole Way House is only ten years old, my grandparents owned SROs (single room occupancy buildings) in the Downtown Eastside so I’ve been in the area my whole life. Those buildings were always close to my grandmother’s heart; she became the Nonna to everyone in those buildings. She brought that idea to care for people who are struggling into our family.

What was different about the SROs your grandparents owned and other ones operating at the time?

When I took over running the SRO buildings, people always remembered my grandparents. I’d hear countless stories about how my grandparents had offered people jobs or helped them out.

When my brother and I took over, we really thought we’d be able to “save” the Downtown Eastside. We thought we’d get everyone jobs, clean clothes, updated resumes, etc. It’s that outside thinking of, “Why can’t we just clean this place up?”

But we learned the core issue in the Downtown Eastside was isolation and loneliness. People living under shame are not able to access or utilize the resources available.

Something my grandparents gave their tenants is dignity. There was a sense of family and love, which comes with an exchange of respect and responsibility.

When you went into the Downtown Eastside, was it a broken system you were entering into?

Absolutely. I went into the Downtown Eastside saying I didn’t want to start another thing that was already being done. We had to sit down and figure out what the difference was between what we were doing and what was going on. We noticed there was a real lack of belonging and family.

When we first took over, a gentleman in one of our buildings died. I had never dealt with something like that before. I was asking everyone who he was, how to get in touch with his family, etc. but most tenants didn’t even know his name. I realized then that I may not be able to fix the entire Downtown Eastside but I could fix that. People don’t need to live alone and then die alone.

We reached out to see who we could partner with to achieve this sense of community. We started simply with a family dinner where people can eat together, instead of taking meals back to their rooms to eat alone.

For our first family dinner, I worked all day to make tortellini for 85 men. I come from restaurants so I really wanted to make it nice. But when dinnertime came, no one was there. I started to get mad because my food was getting cold! But I realized that the men were actually outside lining up with their own plates. I had to explain that this wasn’t a line up. It took a while for them to learn that sense of community and how to enjoy a meal together.

Every time I did a family dinner, I noticed the men wanted to help. They would set the table, help with the dishes, etc. That’s human nature.

We don’t want a hand-out; we want to contribute. Especially for people who used to work and now don’t have an opportunity, they want to feel useful. When we just give aid, it strips away people’s pride.

Our three pillars at Whole Way House are reconnect, rebuild and recentre. Rebuilding is about giving people a chance to find purpose and help. People want to help. When we take that away, we don’t let people grow and the cycle will continue. We need to give everyone a chance to contribute and understand that contributing will look different for everyone.

How did you get into this work?

I never saw myself running a charity. In 2009, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That was very shocking to me. At that point, I was a huge workaholic in my corporate life. I decided to spend more time with my family, which meant leaving the corporate world. So I began helping with my family’s businesses.

It wasn’t until that gentleman, Jean-Francois, passed away in one of our buildings that I realized this is my life’s purpose. I wanted to show people what was possible on the other side.

For the first two years, we didn’t start a charity. We were just working in the building and getting to know people. A lot of people reached out to us, people from the church and business community, to help get us started. Whole Way House wouldn’t exist without the experts in their field who just wanted to help.

In 2017, BC Housing approached us because they could see how the ripple effect of our services supported housing. We were able to replicate our programs for seniors and veterans who had been homeless. It’s all about humans needing connection in a healthy community.

We had 134 infractions on our first City of Vancouver inspection and I thought they were going to shut us down. But by our fourth inspection, we only had three infractions because the tenants were so proud of their homes. We saw such a change and my job as a landlord became so easy. Tenants were treated with dignity, had people who believed in them and a community to contribute to.

Until we create health and healing, nothing will change. Of course, we need housing. We are facing a housing crisis. But until we face the heart crisis, we will not see change. Until people believe they are valuable members of society, we won’t see a change.

When covid hit the Downtown Eastside, how did the community step up?

I learned that seniors make up 24% of our homeless population in Metro Vancouver. But they keep quiet and don’t ask for help, so no one knows that. At the time, we were working with the provincial government to help those who were homeless and prevent homelessness.
When covid hit, we recognized that low-income seniors, who were the most vulnerable and being asked to isolate, didn’t have access to food. Within 48 hours, we had a meal delivery program up and running, funded through BC Housing. They responded so quickly! We were able to get meals straight to the doors of seniors living at the Veterans Manor.

Within a couple of weeks, I learned we had hundreds, if not thousands, of other seniors across the Lower Mainland who were not getting food. So I reached out to the business community for help.

Ask for Luigi, who have been supporting Whole Way House for many years, had to lay off 90 employees during covid. I asked if they would help us create healthy meals for seniors if I could get the funding and they said, “Absolutely!” In fact, they were already making meals for my frontline staff before that.

After Ask for Luigi, The Dirty Apron and The Eden Cafe came on board and we were able to expand our program across six housing programs and 19 buildings in just four days. We served nearly 300,000 meals in a year and a half!

We went from three employees to 20 employees overnight doing door-to-door deliveries. I told them, “You’re not DoorDash! Don’t leave the food at the door without checking and seeing how people are.” We saw seniors declining because they were alone. We were their only human connection so we wanted to make sure they were doing okay.

We’ve recently had changes in our provincial and municipal governments. Are you optimistic?

I am optimistic. I had a 15 minute meeting with David Ebywhen he was the Minister of Housing and he was the catalyst for our pilot project. We received a pilot project with BC Housing for low-income seniors buildings.

The biggest critique of government is that they’re reactive, instead of proactive, which ends up being much more expensive. I kept asking for them to look at supporting seniors in housing before they experienced homelessness. Seniors in subsidized housing are the most at-risk of slipping through the cracks.

David Eby got me a meeting with BC Housing and we had a project up and running. The province gave us the funding to do a program evaluation so we could have the data to see if the pilot project worked.

Municipally, I work with a few of the city councillors and really appreciate that they come and see what we’re doing at Whole Way House. They say this is what we need – compassionate care for people with accountability. We need to see if it’s working. If we’re not moving forward, how can we adapt support services so we’re actually helping?

How do you quantify the ROI of the work Whole Way House is doing?

The City of Vancouver just hired an Auditor General, Mike Macdonell, which I think is a very responsible move. He just released his first report on building permit fees; is our current building permit system a good system? Mike also asked me to join his advisory committee. I think it’s wise to audit how our city is spending our money.

Even though I run a charity, I come from the business world. I want to know that what I’m doing is effective. The return on investment is: Are people’s lives being changed?

Our retention rate, bringing people in from homelessness or inappropriate housing, is 97%. That’s unheard of! There is a cycle of homelessness; many people who get housing become homeless again because they don’t have the right support.

How do you combat that cycle of homelessness?

I teach my staff that we set the tone. In our morning coffee program, we set the tone for the tenants to match. There’s an atmosphere of respect and mutual exchange. People rise to the occasion.

Coming from a trauma-informed approach, I know that the people I work with come from horrific backgrounds. I come to that with empathy and say, “You deserve better. You deserve to live in a home that is clean and safe. You deserve to have friends and family around you.”

It changes the way people behave when you treat them with respect.

Where is Whole Way House operating and how can people help?

Over the last year and a half Whole Way House has expanded into nine buildings, three of which are in the Downtown Eastside. We also partner with Union Gospel Mission and work with people in recovery, and we have a site in Surrey where we work with kids and low-income families.

We expanded so quickly and received funding from the government for our staff, which I’m so thankful for. That means when people make donations, they go 100% towards our programs. Donations are so appreciated and help our programs to continue.

This year we’re bringing back our volunteer program full-force. That might mean setting up dinner or having a cup of coffee with a senior and just talking to them.

People can sign up to volunteer or donate at https://wholewayhouse.ca/. 

We are a registered charity, so any donation gets you a tax receipt. If you want to come down and tour or volunteer, we’d love to show you around and we’re always looking for helpers.

I really believe in social capitalism – the better our society is doing, the more we’re able to reach out and help. When we have, we ask, “How can we help?” But if you don’t have, you can’t help. The restaurants we partnered with during covid wouldn’t have been able to help us if they hadn’t been successful restaurants. It’s about how we can work together to use our time, talent and treasure.

The 5 Wire: Getting to Know Whole Way House President Jenny Konkin

What is a book you recommend?

We’re reading Dare to Lead by Brene Brown as a leadership team. I love it! It’s helped me with so many challenging conversations.

What new belief, behaviour or habit has most improved your life?

I believe in rhythms. A lot of people talk about trying to find balance but I don’t think balance exists. I believe in rhythms. So no matter what season you’re in, if you keep your rhythm steady, it will stay flowing.

What have you been binge watching lately?

This is embarrassing but I watched From Scratch on Netflix and was full blown, ugly crying.

Favourite band or music?

I love music! I was recently in Nashville and it brought back my love for country music. The city is pretty ugly with lots of construction happening but the music scene is unreal. It’s so much fun!

What is something you’ve purchased recently for under $1500 that has had a positive impact on your life?

I just bought this thing on Amazon for $19.99 that stretches your neck. It’s changing my life daily!

• Whole Way House Society