The PEERS night outreach van is packed with supplies to bring support, food, harm reduction, clothing and other items to sex workers and people who are unhoused.
“It’s really important because we’re the only outreach van that’s out seven nights a week in the community,” explains PEERS operations manager Leigh Elliott. “We’re the only organization on the Island that serves sex workers on the stroll.”
PEERS is one of only a few organizations in all of Canada to provide support for sex workers, and mobile outreach is a vital part of what they do.
“Sex workers work at night, they’re often sleeping during the day when most services are open for them,” Elliott says. “They also face three times the amount of barriers accessing health services.”
“It’s kind of shocking but in our community once seven o’clock hits there are no outreach services for people so having a van out there in the areas where people feel vulnerable to being victimized is really, really important,” adds PEERS executive director Rachel Phillips.
But after six years of nightly use, helping about 20 people a night and around 1,000 different clients a year, the used van is starting to fall apart.
“It’s very rundown at this point,” says Elliott. “We’ve had it in the shop twice in the last month so the engine is dying on us, the doors are falling off. It’s just not working.”
PEERS is hoping to raise $125,000 for a new, larger and more functional van that they can retrofit with a fridge, stove, and microwave.
But the stigma sex workers face can make fundraising a challenge.
“It is a stigmatized issue so the stigma that is there for sex workers to some degree passes over to the people that work with sex workers, so yeah, fundraising for PEERS is definitely more tricky than fundraising for other non-profits,” Phillips says.
But they’re hopeful the community will rally to help—especially since a new van will mean they can expand their outreach to different locations.
“We can see more people in a night,” Phillips explains. “There are a ton of people unhoused outside, there are a ton of vulnerable women in our community, so with a new van we can expand our services.”
If you’d like to make a donation for a new van, click on this link to the PEERS van fundraiser.
Tess van Straaten
