It’s a $10 taxi ride from Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront to East Hastings and Main – the epicentre of Canada’s drug poisoning crisis that is disproportionally impacting Indigenous People.

At the Aboriginal Front Door Society, kitty-corner from historic Carnegie Community Centre and the heart of Downtown Eastside (DTES), hope floats, as smoke from a traditional smudging lingers in the room and a team of volunteer outreach workers rallied for a weekly brown bag lunch distribution.

Every Wednesday, over 350 souls living on the DTES receive a bologna sandwich, granola bar, fruit cup and juice box.

“Food brings us together. It’s part of our teaching,” said James Harry, executive director of the All Nations Outreach Society and a proud Haisla Nation member.

“It’s a little bit of an Indigeno

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