{"id":115109,"date":"2026-07-03T18:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/115109\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T18:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:19:07","slug":"surrey-housing-gives-safe-harbour-to-youth-young-moms-spare-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/115109\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey housing gives Safe Harbour to youth, young moms | Spare News"},"content":{"rendered":"

With housing affordability continuing to be a growing issue across the province, a local charity has opened a new transitional housing program for youth and young mothers fleeing violence and experiencing housing instability in Surrey.<\/p>\n

The program, called Safe Harbour, was launched by DIVERSEcity. The organization has been operating in Surrey, Delta and Langley for over 47 years. The charity provides a variety of services like employment training, language programs, mental health support and citizen preparation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Safe Harbour program is more than just housing, however, as Lenya Wilks, director of Community Inclusion, Health and Equity, explained youth will also have access to career development opportunities, counselling services, social activities and chances to connect with different cultural and religious beliefs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want them to walk away feeling like they have a community who wants to champion them and see them succeed \u2026 It\u2019s not just about giving them the home. It\u2019s about setting them up in a good way, so that they can sustain themselves beyond the short term,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

On how the Safe Harbour program came about, Wilks explained SideBySide Children\u2019s Village Society \u2014 a charity that provides support for children in the foster care system \u2014 had expressed interest in partnering with other organizations. After a proposal and some interviews, Wilks was informed the partnership was confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next step, she said, was figuring out how they would get funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilks said she applied for federal funding through the Reaching Home program<\/a>. The application was successful and the initiative received a few hundred thousand dollars, enough to keep the Safe Harbour program running for two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program includes three homes \u2014 two for youth and one for young moms \u2014 each with five bedrooms and about an acre of backyard space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure that [the house] was clean, it was new, that the youths would have comfortable beds [and] that it felt like a space that a parent or a family member would want to design for their own family,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilks said the team was extremely intentional in deciding how to furnish the house \u2014 this attention to details even went into what utensils to buy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want it to feel undignified. We wanted it to be a really dignified space for each individual. One of the youth said to us \u2026 that the space really made him feel dignified, and he really felt seen and appreciated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On June 24, DIVERSEcity hosted an open house to launch the program. Only the young mom\u2019s house was showcased and Wilks said the community response was positive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody made a comment that it felt like a retreat, like you were in a safe haven, because you had all of this greenery outdoors,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the future, Wilks said the charity hopes to expand and offer more housing for those who need it, but for now, she is focusing on sustaining the funding for Safe Harbour beyond the two years. Wilks added that she is keeping her eyes open for different funding opportunities, public proposals and perhaps hosting a fundraiser.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really going to be proactive around ensuring that we can sustain this beyond the two-year funding that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

On working with the City of Surrey, Wilks said DIVERSEcity receives funding through the city for its counselling program and two councillors attended the open house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added that she hopes to see the city invest in future initiatives like this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard environment for individuals. Working and non-working people are struggling to meet ends, and so wherever we can support the community at large, it will always be nice to have the city\u2019s support behind it and invest in nonprofits to do these kinds of work on a continuous basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With housing affordability continuing to be a growing issue across the province, a local charity has opened a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[841,239,8448,6417,3005,97],"class_list":["post-115109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-affordable-housing","tag-british-columbia","tag-charitable-organization","tag-social-issues","tag-spare-news","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}