Chapter 1: Welcome

Becoming Neighbours

a woman wearing a head dress approaches, with outstretched arms, a woman wearing a backpack
Illustration by Anika Bauman

We are in solidarity

“Welcome” is a greeting that goes both ways. At Kinbrace, welcome begins with the recognition that we are all seeking safety and belonging. From that common ground, we choose to live in solidarity as neighbours.

We know we are living in solidarity with our refugee claimant neighbours when we make our home together — a home where each of us has a place and a voice to say, “Welcome.”

When we are at our welcoming best, our welcome is not simply a courtesy, but a true invitation into shared life. When we live side by side, people who are experiencing forced displacement are no longer “strangers”; they become neighbours, friends, sisters or brothers, and people with inherent dignity and agency. We know we are living in solidarity with our refugee claimant neighbours when we make our home together — a home where each of us has a place and a voice to say, “Welcome.”

Bearing witness to exile

Our welcome could easily be drowned out in a world of forced displacement. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are at least 82.4 million people in the world who have been displaced from their homes. Of these, 48 million are internally displaced and remain within their country; 26.4 million have been forced to leave their countries and are classified as refugees; and 4.1 million are living as refugee claimants or asylum seekers who have yet to gain official refugee status.³ These are numbers I cannot comprehend, especially knowing there is a face, a name, and a story connected to each one. The scale of forced displacement is formidable, and those of us who seek to provide assistance to displaced people need a response that actively resists paralysis. We need not only the word “welcome,” but practices of welcome to live out in daily life.

two houses side by side, with a chicken, tricycle and ball in the back yards
Illustration by Anika Bauman

We live with refugee claimants

We live out this vision of welcome in the middle of a residential block on a busy street in East Vancouver. Kinbrace comprises two houses that contain nine independent apartments between them (six short-term units for refugee claimants and three longer-term units for hosts). Hosts may be Canadians or those who have lived the refugee journey and are on their way to citizenship. Architecturally, the two houses don’t have much in common — one is a hundred-year-old character home and the other is a “Vancouver Special” with all the marks of 1960s modernism — but there is no fence between them. Instead, the wooden posts of the clematis-clad staircase descend into a joint backyard with a spacious shared patio. This paved area is the site of summertime outdoor dinners, lively cricket matches, and a regular after-school parade of scooters, tricycles, and bikes. Beyond the patio there are garden beds, a chicken coop with several chatty hens, and a small patch of lawn bordered by ferns.

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Inspiring transformative communities where refugee claimants and Canadians flourish together.

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Kinbrace | Refugee Housing & Support

Inspiring transformative communities where refugee claimants and Canadians flourish together.