‘It Takes a QMUNITY’: B.C.’s queer community centre launches fundraising campaign

The future home of QMUNITY at Burrard and Davie streets is seen in this rendering. (QMUNITY)

Construction on the new home of QMUNITY – B.C.’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community centre – is well underway, but the campaign to bring it to life is just getting started.

QMUNITY has launched a $3.2 million fundraising campaign, dubbed "It Takes a QMUNITY."

To be clear, the fundraiser is not to pay for construction of the new space, which will take up part of the ground floor and all of the second floor of a social housing building at the southeast corner of Burrard and Davie streets in Vancouver.

“The building is going up one way or the other,” said Anthony Azar, chair of QMUNITY’s board, in an interview with CTV News on Saturday.

“Our floor is actually done, which is cool, but there are many more floors being constructed. This money is for all the things in order to get in there: Moving costs, new furniture. We’re moving from a 3,000-square-foot space to a 13,000-square-foot space, so it’s a significant increase in size for us.”

The new QMUNITY centre will be home to a dedicated youth lounge, a dedicated seniors lounge, and bigger and more accessible programming and peer support spaces.

“Within the building that we have right now, it’s very difficult to get more than a dozen people into a room, just by virtue of how the structure of the building is set out,” Azar said. “It’s very hard for us to run programs, and our programs continue to scale.”

Roughly half of the $3.2 million fundraising goal has already been raised from major donors behind the scenes, but Azar said no donation is too small as the campaign enters its public phase.

QMUNITY served more than 15,000 people across B.C. last year from its existing base at Davie and Bute streets, which has long been insufficient for the organization’s needs.

“For over 40 years, we’ve been doing this work in the province, and for decades, we’ve been in a space that is too small for us, that is not accessible, and that is kind of just falling apart,” Azar said.

The new space – which Azar said QMUNITY expects to open in about 18 months, though a firm date has not yet been set – will be accessible to people with disabilities, a key and long-desired upgrade.

It’s also in a highly visible location, something Azar said is important at a time when queer and, especially, trans identities feel more under attack than they once did.

“I remember growing up in the suburbs as a queer kid right around the time when gay marriage was passed, and it felt like year after year after that, we started to make progress on equal rights for all of the queer, trans and two-spirit folks in B.C.,” Azar said. “And then, over the last five years, we’ve really taken multiple steps back. It’s become less and less safe for queer and trans folks to just be.”

“This building is going to be an iconic building on the corner of Davie and Burrard,” he added. “Everyone will be able to see it. There will be a lot of rainbows on it. And so we’re excited to be proud and to be visible and to remind folks that we are here. We also know that it’s critical for us to scale up in order to offer more services to all these folks.”