By Tiffany Craw Ford
Vancouver Sun
July 21, 2013

When Jenny Konkin and her brother took over running the Avalon hotel in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside from their grandmother three years ago, she was disheartened by a melancholy among residents.

She realized that many of the 85 low-income tenants who rented at the single room occupancy hotel were lonely.

The residents, mostly older men with metal health or addiction issues, didn’t interact with each other. They would come and go from their rooms without saying hello or in some cases not making eye contact.

“I remember when I first took over this place there was a man and, for two and a half years, I would say ‘hello’ to him when he walked by and he wouldn’t look at me,” said Konkin, 30.

But that has changed in a couple of months since the Konkin siblings – Jenny and her 28-year-old brother Josh – founded the Whole Way House, a not-for-profit organization aimed at battling loneliness in the Downtown Eastside. They hope the group will serve as a model for other single-room occupancy hotels in the area.

Siblings Josh and Jenny Konkin unload items for the Whole Way House picnic in Stanley Park, Saturday. The non-profit organization aims to create a sense of family in single-room occupancy hotels, including their own Avalon hotel.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, PNG, Vancouver Sun

The idea behind the Whole Way House, founded in March, is to connect the residents in a meaningful way, create dialogue where there was none, and build a sense of community.

Or as Jenny Konkin calls it “a family.”

Raised by traditional Italian parents, Konkin said she always felt privileged to be part of large, boisterous family dinners, the kind of gathering where lots of family members sit around a big table laden with heaping plates of pasta and talk and laugh for hours.

She wondered how she might bring the spirit of those dinners to the Downtown Eastside and connect some of the tenants so they didn’t feel so alone.

So the siblings cleared out a backroom on the ground floor of the hotel where they now hold a family dinner night once a week and a games night. They had their grand opening in March, and Konkin said she was amazed at how the residents were mingling and talking to each other.

On Saturday, they took the residents on a field trip to Stanley Park for a barbecue and fundraiser. The food was cooked and donated by The Dirty Apron cooking school. All the money raised will go to providing free meals and transportation for Whole Way House members, she said.

Some local businesses have also donated their time to help get Whole Way House off the ground, like the Chop Shop salon which sends a hair stylist to the hotel to offer free haircuts to the residents.

The Avalon has been run by Konkin’s family since the ’70s when it was purchased by her grandparents Mario and Mina Angelicola. When Josh and Jenny Konkin took over in 2010, they resisted offers from developers to sell and were determined to continue their family legacy and make the place into a home for the residents, many of whom have lived at the Avalon since they were children.

Konkin said she remembers being a little girl and attending the annual Christmas dinners her grandparents would cook for the residents.

It was the one time of year, she said, the residents would get together, eat home-cooked food and have a good old natter. So Konkin thought why not hold a “family” dinner every week.

Konkin does most of the cooking (“usually Italian, usually pasta,” she said, laughing) with food donated from the public and some help from volunteers and partners like Quest Food Exchange.

“We grew up watching how our grandparents loved and cared for those residents,” said Konkin. So we really wanted to do something for them, we wanted to see them have a home and not just a room and a bed … and we wanted to do it in a way that showed that we don’t want to change anyone.”

She recalled how one resident came to the opening night with his hair unkempt and little effort put into his appearance.

“I had never even heard his voice before but there he was talking to other people,” she said.

“And then he came again for games night, I saw he had dressed up a bit and combed his hair. It’s those little things, you know, that he felt valuable and part of something that made him want to wash his hair.”

Whole Way House has three pillars: Reconnect, Rebuild and Recentre.

The first is already underway with the dinner and games nights, and once the non-profit organization raises enough funds, Josh and Jenny Konkin want to offer programs such as life skills, cooking or art classes. They also have plans for a community garden on the terrace of the hotel’s second floor. The final pillar would be to build more substance-free housing with support for residents battling addiction.

She said usually between 20 and 40 residents show up for dinner night. The room also has a small library, chairs and there is usually a hot pot of coffee.

She said if they can raise enough money, they’d also like to have a small canteen where the residents, many of whom have mobility problems and difficulty shopping, can buy staples such as sugar, tea, coffee, milk and vegetables.

“They all keep asking me for veggies and dip,” she said. “That really made me smile that they were all so keen on the vegetables.”

And what of the resident who never looked at Konkin when she said hello as he passed in the hallway? “He says ‘hi’ to me every day now.” she said. “It brings tears to my eyes.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/place+where+everybody+knows+your+name/8690027/story.html