Our Community Partners

Powell Street Festival Society collaborates with various community partners to produce year-round programming and initiatives. Click on the sections to learn more.

360 Riot Walk

360 Riot Walk is an interactive walking tour of the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver. It utilizes 360 video technology to trace the history and route of the mob that attacked the Chinese Canadian and Japanese Canadian communities following the demonstration and parade organized by the Asiatic Exclusion League in Vancouver. Participants are brought into the social and political environment of the time where racialized communities were targeted through legislated as well as physical acts of exclusion and violence. In April 8, 2021, Powell Street Festival Society announced the stewardship of the tour.

WePress

Created by long-time artists and community organizers, WePress is a community artspace in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver, BC, Canada on the occupied and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓il̓wətaʔł (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. The mission of WePress is to advance education by providing workshops on historic and contemporary methods of print- and art-making for the public, with a particular focus on individuals from marginalized communities in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).

DTES SRO Collaborative Society

The SRO Collaborative was established to organize SRO tenants in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Chinatown. The SRO-C was established in 2015 as a pilot project that focused on setting up tenant committees and organizing for repairs in 5 privately-owned SROs which included the high profile cases where tenants won major improvements at the West and Lion Hotels and evacuation/relocation to better housing at the Regent and Balmoral Hotels. In 2017, SRO-C formed its own society and began organizing networks of SRO tenants for overdose prevention in the privately-owned SROs. In 2018, SRO tenants joined with academics from Queens and Simon Fraser Universities to research the past, present and future of SROs and to stimulate a new phase of organizing in the hotels.

Embers Eastside Works

EMBERS Eastside Works is an income generation hub located in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. EMBERS Eastside Works helps people improve their livelihoods by connecting residents with opportunities to earn supplemental income, and providing services and opportunities (jobs, volunteer placements, training and more) to anyone looking to get started and connect to the world of work. Powell Street Festival Society works with Embers Eastside Works to distribute funds to peers working in the Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver Downtown Eastside Community Land Trust

The DECLT was formed in the spring of 2020, when a coalition of DTES-serving nonprofits were looking for holistic solutions to the ongoing SRO crisis. Through discussions with housing innovators across Canada, the coalition was introduced to the idea of community land trusts. With some initial seed grants, the DECLT was able to hire staff and develop its vision. The DECLT officially incorporated in January, 2023. The original coalition members include: Aboriginal Front Door Society; Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre; Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative Society; Dr. Jeff Masuda (Right to Remain Research Collective); and Powell Street Festival Society