As a teenager in the mid-aughts, Taylor Soroka spent a lot of time on her skateboard, zipping around Edmonton. When she crossed paths with new people, she’d kick up her board and say hello.
“You meet people in community and, as you get to know them, you get to know their stories and you want to be in community with them,” she says. “And for me, that means you care about your neighbours.”
Too many of the people she met were unhoused, which angered her: “We are in one of the wealthiest parts of the world. There’s no reason why anyone should sleep outside.”
Confronted with what she saw as a ridiculous and solvable problem, she set out to do something. In 2006, she recruited her community-minded father, Murray, to help her deliver meals to unhoused community members in their west-end neighbourhood.
“After a while, it just seemed easier to rent space and have community in a space,” says Soroka. At the time, her father was a successful business person in the city who owned and operated several restaurants. But he made time to fundraise through his church and by knocking on doors in his community to pay for a space on Stony Plain Road.
Together, Soroka and her father renovated the space to create a small community drop-in centre. They bought and installed walls for the bathroom, put in the plumbing for toilets, and did whatever was needed to make the space functional and friendly. They also spent a lot of time getting to know their unhoused and impoverished neighbours to find out what they needed. “Our first mission was to build community through relationships,” she says.
Since Soroka was in high school, most of the heavy lifting of the centre’s operation — which they ultimately named Jasper Place Wellness Centre (JPWC) — fell to her father. However, Taylor could often be found working at the centre, sometimes during school hours (to the dismay of her mother and teachers).
Nearly two decades later, Taylor holds the title of vice-president of strategy (though she prefers the label “neighbourhood auntie”) and has been instrumental in the organization’s growth. Today, JPWC offers a wide range of community services, including permanent housing (the organization has 200 housing units across the city that provide a broad spectrum of affordability).
For about seven years, the organization operated a medical clinic out of a trailer on Stony Plain Road. The clinic was temporarily closed over the last year because of complicated funding logistics, but Soroka explains that a grant from the provincial government will allow the centre to once again provide much-needed, expanded medical care to vulnerable community members.
It’s been almost 20 years since Soroka began her community work and her passion has not waned. She points out that there are more people than ever who are either houseless or have “more month than income” despite the city’s prosperity, and far too many people are suffering or even dying because of circumstances beyond their control.
“At the end of the day, if every Edmontonian gave a little bit more, that wouldn’t have to happen,” she says. “And I’m not talking just financially. I’m talking mentally, emotionally; if we hold and create space for each other, we literally can do better. So I don’t think I’ll stop until I feel like I’ve kind of done as much as I can.”
This article appears in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of Edify
