Thrive 2 Survive, a Clark County-based nonprofit that offers services to people experiencing homelessness, will provide 24-hour staffing and case management to people living in Vancouver’s Safe Parking Zone, where people are allowed to live in their vehicles.
The site, often called Safe Park, is located at the Evergreen Transit Center in east Vancouver. It was created toward the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the city decided to continue operating it when it adopted its Homeless Response Plan in 2021.
Advocates say Safe Park is a much-needed place for people to live in their cars or recreational vehicles. Many own RVs that are too old to be allowed in Vancouver’s RV parks, where rent is an average of $817 a month.
But Safe Park isn’t seeing as many leaving for housing as Vancouver’s pallet-shelter communities called Safe Stays. A city staff report cited that as part of the reason for the city’s $809,473.89 contract with Thrive 2 Survive for a year of service.
Thrive 2 Survive’s founder, Charles Hanset Jr., said he’s looking forward to providing people “a road to home” — a desire that inspired the new name for Safe Park: Road 2 Home.
“We’re going to help them overcome their barriers and hopefully get them into a safer housing situation,” he said.
Thrive 2 Survive provides outreach, resource fairs, hot meals, clothing and community-building events for people experiencing homelessness.
Hanset said the idea for Road 2 Home is to help people with whatever barriers they face, whether that’s navigating housing voucher systems, obtaining a driver’s license or signing up for food stamps.
“We really wanted to try to step in and provide a higher level of care for the individuals that the city wasn’t able to do because they’ve got a million other things to do,” Hanset said.
Jamie Spinelli, the city’s Homeless Response manager, can often be found at Safe Park, chatting with residents and other staff. She’s been working on getting bathrooms and showers in Safe Park permanently, which will be installed soon.
Spinelli said she hopes the city’s contract with Thrive 2 Survive will help engage residents of Safe Park with the wider community.
“We start to build community within the site, and then we work outward,” she said.
Through its community events and resource fairs, Thrive 2 Survive has connections with more than 50 different organizations in the community, ranging from lawyers to medical teams. Hanset said he hopes to work with these organizations to provide services at Road 2 Home.
Hanset said Thrive 2 Survive will also organize volunteer community cleanup events among residents.
“It gets them outside of the park and around the community there, cleaning up,” Hanset said. “It shows our community around there that they actually take pride in where they live.”
Erin Honan, director of operations for Thrive 2 Survive, said many of the organization’s staff have lived experience of homelessness and will provide peer support to people in the parking zone.
“I’m just really excited to bring some peer work in here and to have that one-on-one time with each of the guests that live here, to be able to help them and support them,” she said.
Thrive 2 Survive will officially begin operating Road 2 Home starting Jan. 1.
