The Headaches of Commercial Leasing: The GVFB’s Journey to a Permanent Home

As Director of Philanthropy at the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Tor Smith collaborates with generous philanthropic supporters and an incredible Development team to make a transformative impact on the lives of those in need of healthy, nutritious food. In this article, Tor shares the journey of finding a permanent home for the organization – overcoming the challenges and complexities of commercial leasing along the way.

Commercial leasing rarely comes without its challenges, but for non-profits, the headache associated with finding appropriate leasing space costs valuable donor dollars and staff resources that are best spent on supporting our communities.

For the Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB), finding a permanent home over the last four years has, at times, severely disrupted our food support. Finding an appropriate lease that is accessible for those in need, large enough to house the 9M lb. of nutritious food distributed each year, and the 16,000 people that come through our doors each month has not been easy.

Over the past four years, our Vancouver distribution service has had six temporary homes. From theatres and neighborhood houses to recreation centers, we went anywhere we could to keep our services going at a time when people across Greater Vancouver were facing a substantial rise in food insecurity. This included outdoor locations - our staff would turn up in a truck to provide food to clients outside despite horrible weather conditions. With a lot of heart, we were willing to do what was needed to ensure our clients continued to receive food, but it was far from an effective and efficient facility process.

We have had to leave one building after another as properties are taken off the market for further development or because we were not able to secure a long-term lease. Our community’s need for food support also grew substantially during this time as the financial implications of the pandemic truly started to be felt. We saw our client registration rise from 270 to 1000 people monthly between January and June of 2021, meaning we outgrew spaces quicker than we could have possibly predicted.

And the shopping list for a new home wasn’t simple. First and foremost, we needed an affordable space close to central Vancouver. Over 60% of our 16,000 monthly clients access food support through our Vancouver facility, so being as close to the city as we can afford ensures that people in need can access our support. With an ever-increasing demand for real estate in Vancouver, it is not easy to compete as a nonprofit.

We also needed plenty of space. Our focus for the last six years has been significantly increasing the amount of fresh produce we give out each week. This includes a variety of fruits and vegetables (with huge thanks to our BC Farmer partners and the Farmer’s Tax Credit) but also products such as eggs, milk, meats, cheese and yogurts – items that many households exclude from their weekly shopping because of the price tag. For the GVFB, this has meant a significant increase in refrigeration and freezers for these products. Add in the need for loading bays for our trucks to offload food, and the number of appropriate commercial leasing facilities that fell in our price range felt slim to none.

Then, in 2023, we hit the real estate jackpot! We moved into our current Vancouver facility on Lougheed Highway – a building that meets and exceeds our operational needs.

A few minutes’ walk away from the Rupert Skytrain, and with lots of refrigeration and freezer space, we have now been located at this facility on Lougheed Highway for nearly two years, the longest period of consistency for our Vancouver clients that we have been able to offer for quite a while. With the increased space and refrigeration, we have been able to consolidate our teams into one building, allowing us to reduce rent and property tax payments, as well as increase operational capacity. Fully settled in, we have been making the space efficient and effective for the long term.

One of the most prominent features of this building is the 4000sq ft of upstairs office space, where we have launched a new program – FRESH Start. We are working with local community partners to offer additional wrap-around services that tackle our clients' face food insecurity – from immigration, to job losses, to mental health difficulties. We already have contracts with WorkBC, Immigrant Services Society of BC, and Canadian Mental Health Association – with more to come.

In 2024, we discussed with our landlords the extraordinary opportunity for the GVFB to purchase our Lougheed facility and have a permanent home. No more leasing or giving out food from the back of a truck in the rain, but instead, a future for food security in Vancouver. We are so excited about the possibilities this will give us to make our facility a permanent home and start working towards even bigger goals, knowing that spending our funding in this way will ensure we are now set up and sustainable for decades to come.

The next step will be raising the funds needed to purchase our Vancouver facility. Should we be successful, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank will have one less challenge in its fight for food security! To learn more about our plan to purchase our Vancouver facility, visit www.freshfutures.ca. Help us set the table for change.

This article is part of our initiative, the Community Spotlight Series. As part of our mandate to champion and celebrate businesses in the Greater Vancouver region, we, as a non-profit ourselves, want to use our platform to shine a spotlight on our non-profit members. Each quarter, we'll recognize a Vancouver-based non-profit that offers programs and services that improve the social and economic well-being of citizens in our community. This quarter, we're featuring the Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB).

The GVFB provides food to people living in Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, and the North Shore monthly through direct distribution. We also provide food support to 150 Agencies throughout these communities, such as housing agencies, women's and children's shelters, transition houses, and after-school programs, providing meals and snacks to thousands of people each week. With a mission to provide healthy food to those in need, the GVFB is BC's largest food bank.