The latest news out of one of Vancouver’s primary LGBT organizations, The Centre, is that it is considering moving from its current home at Bute and Davie in the West End to a street-front location at Burrard and 7th. The non-profit has been struggling for years to expand services and rebrand the organization – although most of these improvements required a new “Centre”. The current facility is small, run down, mice infested, unfriendly, and inaccessible.

However, as bad as that may sound, The Centre remains a highly used safe gathering space for the queer community – a community that has laid its roots in the West End and on Commercial Drive. These two areas are the only gay villages in the region. Now you can debate the validity of a gay village and whether they will survive the coming decades, but there is absolutely no question that human beings have a natural tendency to assemble and form collective groups.

Whether it’s ethnicity, religion, money, or sexual orientation, there’s a vast array of geographical communities in Metro Vancouver. South Asians live in Surrey, Christians live in Abbotsford, the rich lives in West Van, and the gays live in Davie Village – these are generalizations, but there’s truth behind it.

The fact remains that Davie Village is the geographical hub for queer people in the Lower Mainland. If you start to remove the services that that community relies on – such as the Odyssey or The Centre – then these services will either be replaced with a newcomer to the area to fill that void, or the community itself will begin to die if it doesn’t have the capacity to replace these services.

In the case of the Odyssey, if it doesn’t relocate to a new venue somewhere in the West End, it’s likely that their patrons will simply move to a different club – possibly taking back Celebrities from the influx of straight people, or begin going to the recently opened, but highly underwhelming Pulse.

With The Centre though, it will be different, as there currently is no service provider like it around – and starting a non-profit is not nearly as easy or sustainable as running a nightclub.

If the organization, which is already dragging its feet and facing a budget shortfall – even with the very few services it provides – moves across the Creek, you can bet your butt that the patrons won’t follow. It’s just too far out of the way.

And what’s the point of a community centre, outside of the community?

Nor will a new replacement pop up in the immediate future.

If The Centre does choose to make the move, don’t expect its future to last much longer. Nor will I have high hopes for the overall wellbeing of the queer community, because without a community gathering space, we’re left with nothing more than a couple clubs and pubs and a book store.

Unless of course, something comes together to fill the void.

Maybe the best thing for The Centre is to move and die a quick death, creating a call-to-action for a new generation of community organizers to start a fresh organization ready to take over The Centre’s role for the 21st century.