Education, Advocacy, and Support: How Community Bridge Prevents Evictions

Too many Edmontonians face a difficult decision every month — pay bills or pay rent.

This was the reality for Katherine (name changed to protect privacy) — and she almost lost her home. As a single mother of two with a part-time job and extra monthly support coming from Alberta Income Support, she was still falling behind and facing an imminent eviction.

After working with her employer to change her job to full-time, she lost her Alberta Income Support benefits and found herself still needing extra help to ensure she and her two sons wouldn’t be evicted from their home. With the eviction notice in-hand, she connected with our Community Bridge program for help.

The main goal of Community Bridge is to prevent evictions and ensure people at risk don’t experience homelessness. Through financial education, benefits navigation, and direct financial assistance, this program seeks to not only prevent immediate evictions, but also help ensure individuals don’t have to face these challenges again.

“Katherine came to us already taking the initiative to change her part-time work to a full-time job,” says Katrina John-West, Manager of Homelessness Prevention and Housing Support with Bissell Centre, where she oversees the Community Bridge program. “Her Alberta Income Support had ended and having a full-time job still wasn’t enough to help her catch up.”

How Community Bridge Helped Katherine

To ensure Katherine could break from this cycle, the Community Bridge team helped her in three areas to pay off her remaining debt and guarantee her housing stability. The first step was making sure Katherine could receive emergency income benefits from Alberta Income Support.

“What some folks don’t know about Community Bridge is we can act as advocates for people,” explains Katrina. “We can also make references to other sources of financial assistance that folks might not know exist.” In addition to advocating for Katherine’s Alberta Income Support emergency benefits, the Community Bridge team connected her with benefits from the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Financial benefits helped, but didn’t cover all her debts — which were collecting interest.

The second approach to helping Katherine came in a one-time, interest-free loan from the Community Bridge program. This lump sum assistance is, on average, paid back within one year of receiving it — even without any timelines or pressure from Community Bridge. “How quickly and frequently folks can pay back this assistance shows us how much we’re helping their financial situations,” says John-West. “It’s setting people up for the best successes possible so they can become empowered with their finances.”

The third type of support Katherine received was a referral to Civida, Edmonton’s largest affordable housing provider. This referral was for additional rent assistance benefits, but many qualifying folks also find new and more affordable homes with Civida — further breaking the cycles faced by countless Edmontonians.

Avoiding Eviction, Controlling Finances, and Finding Stability

Today, Katherine remains in her home with her two sons, now both teenagers and preparing for adulthood. She’s regained control of her finances, cleared out all her debts and arrears, and continues to work full-time while maintaining her household.

“Katherine is a really special success story,” says Katrina. “Many times, we’re meeting people who are in the middle of being evicted or aren’t able to work. Katherine was doing everything right and the odds were still stacked against her. Everything she needed was within reach — she just wasn’t sure where to look. I’m so proud that the team could point her in the best direction for her and her family.”

Thanks to support from ENMAX, the Community Bridge team can continue connecting with folks at risk and prevent them from being evicted and facing homelessness. “We believe in empowering our communities and helping more people access the essentials for a healthy, thriving life,” says Krista Moroz, Manager, Community Partnerships & External Relations at ENMAX. “By supporting Bissell’s Community Bridge Program, we’re not just helping individuals and families in crisis — we’re also investing in the long-term strength of our community and a brighter future for all Edmontonians.”

From January to October 2024, we helped 464 individuals, just like Katherine, facing immediate evictions from their homes. Best of all, 96% of the people we help through Community Bridge stay in their homes. We can’t thank organizations like ENMAX enough for their support — without our generous funders, we wouldn’t be able to offer the crucial help that’s needed throughout our city.

Honouring the Pride Woven into Indigenous History

June is an important month for Bissell Centre – it’s both Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month. There is a close connection between what Pride Month is all about and Indigenous history in our country. 

Countless Indigenous Nations across what’s now called North America saw Two-Spirit Peoples as not only an engrained and normalized part of their culture — Two-Spirit Peoples were often highly regarded and seen as a gift from the Creator.  

“They were a very important part of Cree society,” says Elder Ed Lavallee. He is a traditional Plains Nehiyaw (Cree) of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan whose career in advocacy for Two-Spirit Peoples has seen him collaborate with groups like Pride Edmonton, the Edmonton Queer History Project, and the Edmonton 2 Spirit Society. Quotes from Elder Ed Lavallee reflect the distinct experience of the Plains Nehiyah Peoples. 

“They had many roles in the daily lives of their people and were respected and revered for being Two-Spirited. They were often healers, shamans, mediators in marriage and tribal disputes, keepers of their history and their lore, and taking part and often leading in their social and Spiritual Ceremonies.” 

While colonial efforts tried to wipe out any non-conformity from a person’s ascribed gender, the presence of these folks never went away. It wasn’t until 1990 that this way of being was finally given a general English translation to help people across Canada understand that, for countless Indigenous Peoples today, there are far more than only two genders. 

The Five Genders 

For Indigenous Nations in what’s now called Alberta, there are five genders in the community: male, female, male with female spirit, female with male spirit, and transgender.  

“Indigenous people believe that both the female and male spirits reside in the body of a Two-Spirit Individual and the degree of dominance of each spirit ultimately impacts the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual identity of each Two-Spirit person,” says Elder Ed Lavallee. 

Rather than trying to change people to better fit with the gender they were born with, Indigenous Nations instead made room for these people and ensured they could contribute to the community with the tasks and skills they identified with most. 

Males with female spirits could take on cooking and cleaning duties, were widely seen as gifted artists, and some Nations even saw them adopt orphaned children to take on a caregiver role. Females with male spirits contributed by hunting and being warriors. Some Nations saw females with male spirit folks marrying widowed women. 

The Reverence for Two Spirit Peoples 

In addition to the everyday contributions Two-Spirit Peoples made to their communities, their gift of having two spirits within them also meant they were good healers, medicine people, and visionaries. This is because the two spirits in them give them what’s called double-vision — the ability to see the world through both the male and female lens.  

“The belief that Cree Two-Spirit People are special is epitomized in the existence of a powerful Two-Spirit Deity known as Qweskicanskew,” adds Elder Ed Lavallee. “In their spirituality, they believe this Spirit turns things around for the good and well-being of all things on earth. This important Spirit is called upon in prayers for help, protection and blessings.” 

Two-Spirit Peoples were foundational to their communities. During colonization, Two-Spirit Peoples’ place in the world seemed to no longer exist. Through the mid- to late-twentieth century, as more Indigenous Peoples began to reclaim their identities, it was clear the different terms used in different Nations like Nádleehí (nad-lay-hee), Winkté (wink-tay), and Niso-acahk-iynew (nee-soh-achak-ee-noo) needed a translation for the wider public to understand.  

Bringing Two Spirit to the Wider Public 

In 1990, at the Third Annual Intertribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference, Elder Myra Laramee put forth the term Two-Spirit. The term is a translation from the Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe language) term Niizh Manidoowag (neez man-ee-doo-wog). It was added to the front of the Pride acronym (2SLGBTQIA+) in recent years and was even a part of the focus for the Federal 2SLGBTQIA+ Action Plan launched in 2022.  

Today, knowledge and understanding about Two-Spirit Peoples is spreading, but is still far behind from where it was before colonization. People like Dr. James Makokis (a Two-Spirit doctor from Kehewin Cree Nation) and MP Blake Desjarlais (a Member of Parliament from Edmonton) are sharing their stories to help more people understand why Two-Spirit Peoples are an essential part of their Nations – and to reduce the stigmatization around people living their authentic lives.  

“They are emerging from their long decades of oppression and marginalization working toward re-establishing their rightful roles in their communities as they go through this period of rediscovery,” says Elder Ed Lavalle. “They are working to be recognized, respected and engaged in an integral manner, within Indigenous communities and society in general.” 

This Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month, we’re celebrating the bravery of Two-Spirit people coming out and bringing this piece of Indigenous culture to the public forefront. We hope you’ll join us in making room for Peoples who can walk in both worlds to share their gifts and help make this world a more equitable place for everyone. 

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