About Us

Linkvan.ca is a mobile-optimized website that connects community residents in the Downtown Eastside to nearby resources. Focusing on basic services such as access to shelter, food, medical care, hygiene services, advocacy and technology access, Linkvan.ca was designed with two user groups in mind:

  1. A growing population of low-income Downtown Eastsiders who rely on mobile technology to meet their basic needs
  2. Service providers who can use information to direct clients in need.

Linkvan.ca was created in collaboration with Kevin Tanyag (Programmer), William Booth, Dionne Pelan, Haydn Mellowship, Melissa Kuipers, Roohi Sahajpal, Felix Tso (Programmer), André Souza (Programmer), Geoff McLennan (Programmer), Diane Campbell (Ambassador), Wilson Liang (Ambassador), DTES Literacy Roundtable, UBC Learning Exchange, community residents, and service providers, with financial support from the Chapman Innovation Grant through UBC’s Centre for Community Engaged Learning. Credit for the initial concept and app design belong to the incredible folks at link-sf.com who created the original source code made available through https://github.com/zendesk/linksf. For some background on the open source project click here. LinkVan is free software. Our open source code can be found here: https://github.com/linkvan/linkvan-web

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at info@linkvan.ca. We'd love to hear from you! :)


Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.