Brand new podcast sheds light on issues related to homelessness in Victoria

Open up that Spotify, there is a brand new locally-made podcast in town!

Our Place Society launched its new podcast, Heart of the Matter, on Tuesday, February 14th, which gives listeners a peek at what goes on behind the scenes and how other agencies are doing their part in helping those less fortunate.

Grant McKenzie, Our Place Society’s Director of Communications, has been working hard for the last six weeks getting together six episodes for local listeners to check out wherever they find podcasts. 

“In dealing with homelessness, you know there’s a lot of issues — addiction, mental health — so just talking to different people from different positions in the community about what they’re seeing and what they think is really fascinating,” McKenzie told Victoria Buzz. 

McKenzie and Our Place Society hope that this will bring about positive change for those who are struggling in Greater Victoria by creating more conversation about ways in which people are helping and working to end homelessness. 

In each episode of Heart of the Matter, McKenzie and his co-host Steven Seltzer, Manager of Corporate Philanthropy, speak with local experts and community leaders to discuss issues surrounding homelessness, addiction, poverty, and mental health challenges in the community.

“I interviewed the police chief and our MLA, Grace Lore, and I also interviewed Moms Stop the Harm,” said McKenzie. “Clean supply is their big thing.”

“So I wanted to talk to them about what clean supply meant and what kind of brought together their group.”

“We also talked to some of the leaders of Our Place to kind of go behind the scenes and give a bit of a sneak peek.”

Now that six initial episodes have been launched, McKenzie hopes to release additional episodes twice a month. 

Heart of the Matter can be found on Spotify, Apple Music and anywhere else podcasts are found. The bi-monthly podcast will also be airing episodes weekly on CFAX at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. 

McKenzie hopes that listeners will be able to see that Our Place wants to do its best to make people’s lives better and that they’re willing to do what it takes to get that done. 

“We don’t want to be stuck in the status-quo of what we’re seeing,” McKenzie told Victoria Buzz. 

“We want to work with the police, we want to work with the government, we want to work with health care, we want to move people into recovery and we really want to see people move out of survival mode and start thriving.”

“I want the public to see that we are a caring organization that really wants to do the best for the people we serve.”