Maisonneuve Magazine has published a potentially damning report on Strathcona’s Jackson Avenue Housing Co-operative (JAHC). In the eight-page article, In the House of the Lord, several former and current tenants claim the co-op's religious founders use faith to manipulate residents and have arbitrarily evicted others.

According to the report, the JAHC is run by six people who are members of St. Chiara, a Christian intentional community. As Andrea Bennett, the author of the piece explains, intentional communities can be loosely defined as a group of individuals who embrace shared ethos (religious or otherwise), live together and divide up household tasks.

All sources in the article went on record and provided their real names. They describe the JAHC as being rife with fear and intimidation. They say the St. Chiara members have dictated some tenants’ personal relationships, and publicly humiliated other individuals for perceived slights.

These charges (if true) are quite alarming, especially when you consider the co-op was given $1.6 million in combined funding from the provincial, federal and municipal governments in 2009.

Some tenants alleged a sort of indoctrination process, where to truly be accepted into the group’s inner circles, one must embrace the beliefs of St. Chiara.

Here’s an excerpt where one current tenant, Ronnie Grigg, describes the point where his relationship with the co-op leaders began to fracture:

But, Grigg says, there were two issues that eventually caused the group to deny him full membership. “These are potentially inflammatory, okay?” He leans over his coffee. “I’m perceived to be too liberal on the same-sex issue. That’s the first issue. The second is my workplace.”

After moving in to the JAHC, Grigg started working for the Portland Hotel Society, a non-profit that provides support for marginalized people in the DTES—something Grigg sees as part of his Christian mission. The Portland offers low-barrier housing for Vancouverites with mental-health and addiction issues. It is also a partner of Insite, North America’s only legal supervised-injection facility, and distributes needles and condoms. According to Grigg, the Portland’s harm-reduction strategy is at odds with St. Chiara’s conservative principles, which emphasize abstinence.

Grigg says St. Chiara’s core members told him that he would have to leave his job if he wanted to become a member. He refused. “Our values are at odds,” he says. He was asked to move out in January 2010, and given six months to leave.

Another JAHC tenant, Ceone Veldman, claims the St. Chiara members tried to control aspects of her personal life.

Veldman says that, for her, “the final nail in the coffin” was when the group started restricting her use of common space. She had been spending a lot of time in the co-op’s green-painted house, because it had a big, comfortable living room. Grigg lived in that building, and they became friends. But soon after, she says, Kathy Walker and Irene Vandas [Two of the co-op’s six core leaders, according to the article] approached her with the concern that she and Grigg were engaging in an illicit relationship. Veldman insisted that they were just friends. Nonetheless, she says, Walker and Vandas then told her not to spend time in the green house.

“It’s obvious that something is very wrong at the Jackson Avenue Housing Co-operative,” said Maisonneuve editor-in-chief Drew Nelles in a release. “It’s heartbreaking to learn that an organization founded to help Vancouver’s most vulnerable residents may be harming them instead.”

In light of the report, I wouldn't be surprised if the Strathcona co-op begins to receive a lot of unwanted attention. Especially when more local media outlets get a hold of the article.

If you’re looking for a compelling read over the weekend—and if you're interested in tales of religious-types who use faith as a weapon—the latest issue of Maisonneuve Magazine is currently on newsstands across Canada. You can also take a gander at Maisonneuve's website for a further preview. 

The Maisonneuve piece on the JAHC was brought to our attention by OpenFile contributor Luke Brocki.