Victoria businesses holding 'cut-a-thon', rally to support homeless Indigenous people

Victory Barber & Brand in downtown Victoria is shown. (CTV News)

Local businesses in Victoria are teaming up to raise money for the Aboriginal Coalition to Endless Homelessness (ACEH).

Victory Barber Shop initiated the fundraiser to help the non-profit organization purchase a new van, and will be cutting hair for donations in a 'cut-a-thon' on Sunday.

Other businesses involved include Habit Coffee, Hide and Seek Coffee, Frickin’ Delights Donuts and Iron and Wood Golf Simulators.

"It’s a really powerful, powerful thing to see people in our community coming together to put that money out to a really good cause and helping to shelter and to provide for our homeless community," said Marylin Olsen-Page, an Elder with the ACEH.

Victory Barber Shop owner Joshua van Leeuwen said the shop has been supported over the last couple of years by the community and that he and all the staff want to give back where it is needed.

"We are secure in a time when so many things are not secure," said van Leeuwen on Friday morning.

"We want to take that good energy and the good feelings and give back to our community."

The coalition currently operates two housing facilities in Victoria with a third opening in the next few months that will house 45 individuals.

It offers a unique approach to housing Indigenous homeless people by offering culturally supportive housing.

"We do cultural programming," said Olsen-Page.

"They’re learning to make drums, they’re learning to make rattles, they’re painting and carving and going out on the land and just reconnecting with the land and with who they are as an Indigenous person," she said.

ACEH also refers to those under its care as family members.

"'Family members' enables us to use that Indigenous concept of care," said Filip Metro Ani, communications and research manager for ACEH.

"Reproducing a familiar [bond], making them feel they’re integrated and connected to something," he said.

Metro Ani points out the need for the society’s service since Indigenous people make up just four per cent of the population in Victoria, but represent 30 per cent of the local homeless community.

"There are historical reason for that," said Metro Ani.

"That’s the outcome of a historical process, genocide, colonialism and imperialism."

Those are three concepts that society is only becoming more aware of now, said Metro Ani, and that reconciliation is helping to get a better understating of these historical wrongs and will help in correcting the atrocities that have contributed to putting people on the street, he said.

He believes we all have a responsibility to play a role in reconciliation.