Our Cause:

Community = Health & Social Equality for All

Our Mission:

Our mission is to eliminate barriers and create opportunities for people to have equal access to health & wellness and to live in our community with dignity.

Our Values:

1. We believe a community is diminished when people who need health and wellness are marginalized.
2. We believe in equitable delivery and availability of health services.
3. We believe that people who use drugs, people who are challenged with stigmatizing health conditions, people who are incarcerated and people who are insecurely housed are especially at risk for not having equal access to health & wellness and a life in our community with dignity.
4. We believe in the power of Yukon’s cultural diversity and the richness of its First Nation, Inuit and Métis traditions and roots.

Blood Ties Four Directions Centre started as a grassroots initiative led by a group of community members who were concerned about HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s. The Skookum Jim Friendship Centre offered a space for community organizing.

The Yukon AIDS program operated out of the Friendship Centre until 1993 when it became incorporated as a charity, changed its name to AIDS Yukon Alliance, and moved to its own location. Throughout the 1990s, the organization started a care fund, hosted Yukon-wide conferences on HIV, started a needle exchange in Whitehorse, initiated pre- and post-test counselling services, began distributing condoms, and provided multi-media campaigns and education on HIV/AIDS and sexuality to Yukon community organizations and schools in Whitehorse and rural Yukon. This work expanded throughout the decade and the organization's reach and impact in the community continued to grow.

In 2001, the organization officially expanded its mandate to include Hepatitis C education and support. To reflect this evolving purpose, the organization decided to change its name. The organization has always been driven by the people who access services and developed a contest to choose a new organizational name and logo. There was a tie for first prize between “Blood Ties” and “Four Directions Centre” so the names were combined into “Blood Ties Four Directions Centre.”

In 2001, the Outreach Van was started as a multi-agency collaborative program run by Many Rivers, Fetal Alcohol  Syndrome Society of Yukon, Kwanlin Dun First Nation, and Blood Ties.

In 2012, the first tiny house, Steve Cardiff, opened on an undeveloped, borrowed lot as a transitional housing program. Steve Cardiff was an MLA in the Yukon and a long-standing supporter of BT4D. The first tiny house   was named in his honour.

In 2013, the board and staff created a vision for the Blood Ties community and areas of work and broadened the focus beyond HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C to focus on the social factors that lead to health and social inequities.

Since then, the organization has continued to expand our services and reach:

• In 2018, when Many Rivers shut its doors, Blood      Ties became the operating partner of the Outreach Van.  In the same year,  Blood Ties started offering immunoassay strip drug checking for fentanyl at its Needle and Pipe program, on the Outreach Van, and at music festivals. 
• In 2019, the Steve Cardiff Tiny House was relocated and four new tiny houses were added to form a tiny house community.
• In 2020, BT4D launched benzodiazepine strip      testing, To Go fentanyl strip testing kit distribution, and pop-up drug checking at the Housing First program in Whitehorse. In the same year, the Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAG), comprised of 8 individuals with lived/living experience of substance use, HIV, and/or Hepatitis C, was started to provide the organization with valuable guidance.
• In late 2021, the Supervised Consumption Site opened with five consumption booths. The inhalation room opened in May 2022. In the same year, BT4D started Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)spectrometer drug checking services at the Whitehorse office and at music festivals.
• In 2024, Blood Ties started preparing meals in-house for community members experiencing food insecurity. The program serves healthy luches and dinners 7 days per week.
• In 2024, the Knowledge Keeper project was launched based on community conversations in Old Crow, Dawson City, and Mayo. It was started in Old Crow, then later expanded to other communities. It draws on the wisdom and expertise of community knowledge keepers to support community members, particularly in rural Yukon communities.
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