Victoria's Alliance to End Homelessness shutting down after 17 years
An organization that helps the unhoused on the streets of Victoria will be shutting down after 17 years.
Sylvia Ceacero, CEO of the Alliance to End Homelessness Victoria, confirmed to Global News that the funding for the organization has been removed or restructured and due to insufficient funding, they will not be able to operate in the future.
'So the board decided to recommend to the membership that we dissolve the alliance in the coming months,' she said.
Ceacero said they presented several scenarios to the board of what funding would be required to build the capacity for the organization but the board approved a budget that is currently $233,000 in deficit.
'So we would have to make that up, plus, of course, have at least a half a million dollars or more to build capacity for the organization,' she added.
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The Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region (AEHCR) started in 2008 as the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness (GVCEH) with a mission to end homelessness in the Capital Region, according to its website.
It consists of local housing, health & social service providers, non-profit organizations, all levels of government, businesses, post-secondary institutions, the faith community, people with lived & living experiences of homelessness, and members of the general public.
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Ceacero said the City of Victoria has traditionally given the Alliance $100,000 a year but did not increase that amount for 2026.
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She said the impact on the community will be great.
'Backbone organizations such as the Alliance are the glue that has the ability to convene, promote collaboration, have the entire homeless and serving sector working together towards, you know, advocating, influencing policy, moving the needle at the systemic level,' she said.
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'And with the Alliance dissolving, that glue will eventually disappear. And you can imagine what that might do to the sector. People will return to working in silos. People will turn to doing the best that they can while they're also attending to the infinite and myriad emergencies and emergencies in their own organization and dealing with the critical issue right now.'
Ceacero added that there will be less time for collaborating on a bigger plan for the unhoused community in Victoria as a whole.
At this time, it appears the Alliance will wind down by December.
Alan Lowe was the mayor of Victoria when the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness was created.
'The Coalition came out of the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness, Mental Illness and Drug Addictions as we were seeing greater signs of street issues in our city,' Lowe said in a statement to Global News.
'It is a sad day to see the demise of this Coalition.'
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Ceacero said that at the end of the day, it is the city's most vulnerable population that suffers.
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'It is very disappointing and heartbreaking because… it also means that all of those great pieces of work that were about to be implemented, that we were very hopeful we're going to have a different kind of impact, that were going to move the needle are now going to be in abeyance for who knows how long,' she said.
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