Support the Building of Letters of Love Home

SUPPORT Letters of Love

Letters of Love DTES 2019

Letters of Love DTES 2016

"My name is Betty G Carrillo, but I am called Che in the DTES. I was born and raised in the Amazon of Bolivia. I was raised by the collective resistance that shaped my upbringing. They taught me the art of navigating the jungle and passing messages through checkpoints—a life that instilled in me a deep-seated passion for driving change and advocating for social justice."

I aim to build a mobile tiny home to house my Letters of Love program, since the city of ‘Vancouver’ has taken my house.

On May 25th, 2023, I was operating my Letters of Love program from a tiny home that I had created atop my old 1981 Chevrolet pickup truck, built during the pandemic to support the DTES community.

At the order of the city, Buster Towing towed my beloved Letters of Love miniature home. They did so while I was having lunch inside, literally removing the floor from beneath my feet and leaving me on a street corner, pondering where I would spend that night."

By October 2023, I sought land on the Sunshine Coast where I bought a trailer and began the construction of a new Letters of Love home base. Shortly after, I had returned to Vancouver to secure more materials, and upon returning to the Coast, discovered that all of my building materials had been stolen. When I went to confront the theft, I found the same materials built into the walls of the landlord's house. Not wanting to face aggression from this man again, I returned to Vancouver to collect more materials to finish the tiny home. Destiny had other plans, as upon my arrival on November 20th 2023, God and behold a stranger stole my purse and ran off with it. I chased after the man and caught up with him, wrestled him, got my purse back, he went to prison, and I was left in a wheel chair for the next 8 months. I may be 60, but I was trained to be a fighter. My father was a renowned freedom fighter who liberated Bolivia (the reason we now have an Indigenous president).

With that, I am unhoused, temporarily dwelling in a modified van as I recover. Naturally, I feel the need to move elsewhere and secure permanent land where I may finally set Letters of Love home.

To do so, I have partnered with the Legion in Roberts' Creek, B.C, from where I will take off to find Letters of Love it's permanent home, crossing as many towns and villages as I can. During my epic journey from Legion to Legion, I will be serving authentic tacos and networking for change while towing a symbolic coffin to mark the end of the homelessness of Letters of Love, and literally cremate it. And you're invited to the party. If not now, when? If not I, who? It is up to me to activate a plan for housing Letters of Love, with you as my witness.

Through all my work in the DTES over 10 years, I never collected any donations or payments. Now I feel is the time for social reciprocity, and for the first time I am asking for your support.

As an award-winning chef who worked in film, I invite you to eat like a movie star when I come through your town. Because when you eat a taco or empanada, literally I build a brick in the wall of Letters of Love home.

Would you like a taco?

Thank you. 

You may follow along with Che 

@lettersoflove_4humanity on IG