housing.

Culturally Supportive Housing and Services

Dual Model of Housing Care

Based on the voices of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit Street Family it became clear an approach beyond housing provision was needed — one that could strengthen Indigenous self-identity, build community, support healing, and create pathways to recovery. In response the ACEHS developed the Dual Model of Housing Care, which provides Culturally Supportive Housing alongside Decolonized Harm Reduction.

On-site Family Members (program participants) have access to Elder support, medicine keepers, cultural mentors, native medicine gardens, traditional foods and cultural programming. To support wellness, Family Members have access to land-based healing and decolonized harm reduction programs. The Dual Model of Housing Care is foundational to the ACEHS.



art by Doug LaFortune
our housing programs.
SpeqƏȠéutxw (SPAKEN) House
SpeqƏȠéutxw (SPAKEN) House opened in August 2020 and offers Culturally Supportive Housing and services to 22 Indigenous women experiencing homelessness, with priority given to those fleeing violence.


Culturally Supportive House
The Culturally Supportive House opened in March 2020 and offered Culturally Supportive Housing and Indigenous Alcohol Harm Reduction services to up to 14 members of the Indigenous Street Family in the downtown core. Culturally Supportive House closed in 2023 and the program moved to House of Courage.


Kwum kwum Lelum, House of Courage
The Kwum Kwum Lelum, House of Courage opened in March 2023.  This is a 44-unit building with an on-site Culturally Supportive Recovery Program. The home of the House of Courage is located in Victoria West.


Family Reunification Program
The Family Reunification Program provides a safe, comfortable home environment for Indigenous Street Family members to visit with their children and grandchildren in Ministry care or staying with extended family.


Sacred Cradle House
Sacred Cradle House
The ACEH’s proposed 6-month pilot program, XEXE PAHLATSIS LELUM (Sacred Cradle House) supports Indigenous mothers and birthers experiencing housing precarity and substance use when discharged from hospital, by providing a culturally supportive transitional home where life together with their newborn can begin. Mothers and birthers stay at the program until stable, affordable housing for their family is secured. To provide the highest level of physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental care, Her Way Home (HWH) has partnered to extend its complimentary services.


We acknowledge and offer gratitude to the Lekwungen (Esquimalt, and Songhees), Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’new, T’Sou-ke and W̱SÁNEĆ (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum)

peoples on whose ancestral, traditional land and unceded territories on which we gather, live, and work.