What this audit can and cannot say

Rules of reading

1. 1. Charity totals are society-wide. CRA T3010 lines 4540 / 4550 / 4560 cover every contract the society holds, including sites outside the DTES. Footprint labels exist so Lookout’s Surrey shelters are not mistaken for Hastings Street.
2. 2. Do not add layers together. City grants to a charity appear in that charity’s return. The City’s $46.7M DTES operating estimate also includes those grants, plus fire, engineering, and parks. Adding them double-counts.
3. 3. Provincial money is the stack. BC Housing operating subsidies dwarf federal Reaching Home and city social grants for housing operators. That is how the system is built, not a finding of waste by itself.
4. 4. Gaps are shown, not filled. Missing years are dashes. 2025–2026 are announced grants until CRA publishes the next complete file. No interpolation.
5. 5. City-run centres are not charities. Carnegie and the Gathering Place are municipal facilities. Their cost lives in the City operating estimate, not a T3010. The Carnegie page also shows the volunteer Carnegie Community Centre Association's T3010 — that is the society slice, not the City department.

Sources

• CRA T3010 Registered Charity Information Return

  Lines 4540 (federal), 4550 (provincial/territorial), 4560 (municipal/regional). Primary series compiled from CharityData. Remaining $0 charities were filled from CRA open-data T3010 files (2021 and 2023 Lists of charities) by legal name and business number — society-wide, not DTES-only. United Way BC government lines are not added (pass-through to recipients already in this ledger).

• CRA T3010 open data (2021 and 2023 Lists of charities)

  Used to fill agencies that still had $0 after CharityData extracts, City SOFI, VCH Part G, and the December 2025 DTES NPO inventory. Matched on legal name (not stored BNs, some of which were inventory mis-tags). Two fiscal years: 2021 and 2023. Peak House uses the Pacific Youth and Family Services Society filing.

• Government of Canada Grants and Contributions

  Federal contribution agreements from open.canada.ca. Used for remaining $0 operators that are not registered charities (or that filed $0 government revenue on T3010) when a published agreement exists. Multi-year agreements are recorded in the start year at the full agreement value. Pass-through funders, First Nations political bodies, and parents already on this ledger are not added a second time.

• Charity Intelligence Canada

  Used where a government total is published but the three-level split is not. WISH, Union Gospel Mission, Covenant House Vancouver.

• City of Vancouver DTES operating estimate

  $46.7 million per year, staff estimate prepared fall 2024, reported February 2025. Council then voted 6–3 to direct staff to compile a list of DTES non-profits and their funding sources.

• City of Vancouver DTES NPO inventory (RTS 17927)

  Staff memo 1 Dec 2025 plus Appendix A spreadsheet: 197 non-profits staff judged to serve people in need in the DTES (94 DTES-only, 103 citywide/regional). CRA government lines (one year, 2022–2024) and City 2024 grant totals. Society-wide, not DTES-only. Eight operators exceed $50 million in total revenue. Carnegie, Gathering Place, and Ray-Cam are excluded as City-run; Providence Health Care was excluded as an authority. Used here to fill CRA years where this ledger had none, and to add City 2024 grants that are not already in SOFI.

• Vancouver Sun, 2014

  The only neighbourhood-wide count: 260 agencies and housing sites, $360 million in 2013, of which $263 million was tax money.

• Province of B.C. / BC Housing releases

  SRO Collaborative $11 million (2023); DEWC renovations $1.8 million (2023–24); 390 Main / 320 Alexander drop-ins; 2025 extensions for Watari and Aboriginal Front Door through March 2026.

• City of Vancouver council reports

  2024 DTES Plan Implementation grants, $649,700 to 17 groups, plus Special Enterprise Pilot $310,000. 2026 Plan Implementation grants, $610,051 to 17 groups (PSPC, 3 Jun 2026). Atira city grants reported by CBC, October 2023.

• City of Vancouver 2026 DTES Plan Implementation grants

  Council approved $610,051 in matching grants to 17 Downtown Eastside non-profits on 3 June 2026. Those awards are listed on the 2026 year page and on each recipient.

• Vancouver Coastal Health Part G — schedule of payments to suppliers

  Provincial health-authority payments to named suppliers over the reporting threshold, fiscal year ended 31 March. Distinct from City of Vancouver calendar-year SOFI. Used here for Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and Drug User Liberation Front Society. No 2018 VCH schedule in this extract. Amounts are added as provincial grants; they are not stacked on a T3010 because neither society has a T3010 series in this ledger.