All posts by Pieta Woolley

Housing

A tale of two co-buys

Originally published on qathet Living

One was strictly business. The other is an intentional community. Both versions of shared mortgages achieved the same goal: getting people into the housing market who might otherwise be shut out. 

Do something weird.

That’s 460 Realtor Austyn MacKinnon’s advice to first-time home buyers who are navigating a crazy market like qathet’s. She should know. She and her husband did something weird to get into the market back in 2014: they co-bought an $800,000 house with acquaintances.

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Arts, Transportation

Prash and Paul make a graphic novel

Hope and fun take the place of fear and despair, in the Lund-produced Steve and Eve Save the Planet: I Can Hear Your Heart Beep

Originally published on qathet Living

In 2015, Paul Shore took his eight-year-old daughter to test drive an electric vehicle. It was their first time in one. Instead of the usual grrrrrs and coughs of a gasoline-fuelled engine, the car gurgled and hummed – like it was delighted.

Back at the dealership, Jashia stepped out, wrapped her arms around the hood, and hugged the car. She said it had a “heart beep.”

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Indigenous Nations, Women

sɛƛakəs Harmony Johnson: Lead with your values

Originally published on qathet Living

Tla’amin Nation’s Harmony Johnson has dedicated her professional life to making change. Because so much has to change. 

The consultant, who lives between Tsleil-Waututh Territory and Tishosum, has been behind some of the biggest moments in reconciliation in qathet, BC and across Canada. They include working on the Tla’amin treaty; recording elders speaking ayajuthem; leading policy work with the First Nations Summit and First Nations Leadership Council; shaping and launching the First Nations Health Authority; writing Written as I Remember It with her grandmother, Elsie Paul; and authoring “They Sigh or Give You the Look: Discrimination and Status Card Usage” on behalf of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs – in response to the handcuffing assault by police of Maxwell Johnson and his 12-year-old granddaughter in a Vancouver bank. 

And so much more. 

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Women

Erin Seeley, CEO of the Metro Vancouver YWCA: Listening is Leading

Originally published on qathet Living

You might remember Erin from her first job behind the concession counter at the Recreation Complex, serving chicken nuggets to hockey fans. Or, from her time in the Academy of Music choirs, or on the volleyball and baseball teams, or from Girl Guides. To Erin, Powell River was her nest and launch pad; she was born at the old hospital in 1976, and graduated from Max Cameron in 1994 – the last year she lived here full-time before leaving to study at the University of Victoria, travel in Latin America, and later attend Simon Fraser University.

Now, Erin is at the helm of one of BC’s largest social services agencies: The YWCA of Metro Vancouver. Under her leadership, the agency provides housing for women and families, childcare, job skills, legal supports, mentorship, support for those who have experienced abuse, support for single moms, and much more.

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Arts

Wish you were here

Originally published on qathet Living

Simply put, COVID gutted audiences in mid-sized and large venues here and across Canada. If we don’t collectively start coming back to our theatres and the arena, qathet could lose the defining arts and sports scene residents have been building for generations.

In the middle of September, actor Jeffery Renn came back to his hometown to perform At Your Service: The Life and Yarns of Robert Service – My Glorious Youth, at the Max Cameron Theatre. It’s an internationally-touring one-man show. 

But in the 400-seat theatre, just 28 people filled seats that Saturday night. Afterwards in the lobby, Max Cameron Theatre manager Jacquie Dawson said that in the three-night run, no night attracted more than 30 people. 

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