Turn the place you live into a place you belong.
Family In My Backyard (FIMBY) is a shared space for the people in your neighbourhood: to ask for help, offer what you have, and stay connected in small everyday ways. Not a city-wide feed. Just the people around you.
Live now in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Strathcona (postal code V6A). Elsewhere? Sign up with your postal code and we’ll let you know when FIMBY arrives.
Same account, same neighbourhood: use FIMBY in your browser or get the app.
Not in Vancouver’s V6A?Bring FIMBY to your neighbourhood →
Good morning, neighbour
THANK YOU
BULK BUY
LIBRARY ITEM
Home
Library
Messages
My Stuff
Example posts:
what a week on FIMBY can look like.
We’re more connected than ever.
So why do so many of us still feel alone?
Designed to stay local
FIMBY keeps things close to home. You’ll see the same neighbours, not thousands of strangers, so names become familiar and small acts of care build real relationships.
And unlike apps built to buy, sell, or give away, FIMBY is built to foster relationships. You loan a neighbour your drill, it comes back, and so does the conversation: a face you’ll see again, not a stranger across town.
What if where you live felt a little more like family?
Not sentimental. Just people who know your name, notice when you’re carrying too much, and leave room at the table.
Here’s what that looks like
Small, everyday ways to ask, offer, and stay connected with people close enough to actually show up.
Ask & Offer
Need a hand moving a couch? Got extra tomato starts? Ask, or offer. Both are normal here.
Lend & Borrow
Tools, kitchen gear, books, from people on your block.
Help Nearby
Borrow a skill like you’d borrow a drill: a neighbour who fixes bikes, tutors, translates, or lends a hand.
Gather
Backyard dinners, block parties, and standing rhythms like a weekly movie night or monthly soup night you can count on.
Shared Life
Thank-yous, stories, prayer if that’s your thing. Never required.
Local orgs
Churches, centres, and community groups post meals, rides, and check-ins: steady tables neighbours can count on, right in the feed.
Receiving help isn’t failure. It’s where trust starts.
Every ask, offer, and shared meal is reaching for the same thing.
Neighbours who are rooted in each other’s lives.
Rooted in real relationship
FIMBY is a small, practical attempt to widen the circle of family, grounded in real life and real place. Not a performance platform. Just a simple structure that gives ordinary care somewhere to grow.
Ask & Offer
Gathering
Thank You
The feed is not the point.
FIMBY isn’t really about software. It’s about refusing something we’ve quietly accepted: that people can live a few doors apart for years and still remain strangers.
A borrowed pot becomes a conversation. A shared meal becomes a check-in. A thank-you becomes a story the neighbourhood remembers. The one who lent the ladder in June is the one asking for a ride in November. Nobody stays the helper. Nobody stays the helped.
There’s an old name for this: mutual aid. Not charity flowing one direction, just neighbours trading places, season after season.
We know this works, because it already has. Not a bigger network, but a neighbourhood that feels a little more like family.
Check your neighbourhood →
Twenty years of an ancient practice
Neighbouring is not our invention. People have been doing it for as long as there have been neighbours: on this land for thousands of years, and on these blocks long before us. FIMBY is just our attempt to keep an old practice alive in a new time.
Our part of the story is twenty-plus years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, on blocks that carry more than their share: block parties, shared meals, borrowed ladders, and showing up when someone was carrying too much. For us that practice is rooted in Christian tradition, and it stays open to everyone. The app is newer than that. What stayed the same is the radius: a block, a building, a few streets, where you see the same faces again and small acts of care can turn into real trust.
It’s not a crisis line, or a substitute for shelters, detox, or health care. It’s the everyday kind of neighbouring that sits alongside those supports, never in their place.
This isn’t theory. During our initial pilot, one neighbour asked for book recommendations and ended up inside another’s home for the first time, after living a block apart for nine years.
No one gets left out
You don’t have to be online to belong here. Someone you trust, a neighbour, a family member, or a church volunteer, can take part on your behalf: posting, responding, and messaging as you. Built for elders, people with low tech confidence, or anyone who’d rather have someone close help them join in.
Parents can do the same for a kid in their household: a parent-managed family profile, so a child can be known by name in the neighbourhood while a parent is always the one at the keyboard.
And you decide how neighbours can show up for you. Help is welcomed, never assumed.
New here? See how FIMBY works.
Turn on the porch light?
If this neighbourhood is part of your real life, you’re welcome here.
Check your neighbourhood
with your postal code
happening nearby
FIMBY not in your neighbourhood yet? Sign up anyway. We’ll add you to the waitlist and let you know when FIMBY launches near you.
Part of a community group or organization? You can join too. Just tick the box when you sign up.
For adults 19+. Families welcome: parents add a family profile from their own login. More in the FAQ.
Bring FIMBY here
FIMBY grows one neighbourhood at a time. If you’re a neighbour, organizer, church, or community group who’d help launch a hub, we’d love to hear from you.
- Gather 10–20 neighbours you can actually recognize
- Host a low-key intro: coffee, porch, or community room
- Optional moderator role with support from the FIMBY team
A few practical things, before you go
Will this just be another dead app?
FIMBY is neighbourhood-sized on purpose: the same faces, again and again, not a city-wide feed chasing engagement.
Read the full answer →Who can see my information?
Only your neighbourhood, never the whole city. Your contact details are never shared automatically; you choose what to share, with whom, and can take it back anytime.
Read the full answer →Do I need to be Christian?
No. FIMBY is open to all neighbours. Christian roots, inclusive welcome.
Read the full answer →Is FIMBY safe for LGBTQ+ people?
Yes, explicitly welcome, with community standards that protect dignity.
Read the full answer →Isn’t lending my stuff risky?
A little. Trusting people always is. But it isn’t blind. Before anyone can borrow, a neighbour who knows them vouches: “I know this person, they’re a good egg.” So you’re not gambling on a stranger, you’re trusting a neighbour’s judgement and passing that same chance along. You risk trusting them, they trust you back. That’s how neighbours slowly become something more like family.
Read the full answer →Is it free?
Yes, free to you. No ads, no premium tiers, no data sales. FIMBY is a non-profit endeavour built to serve the people who use it, sustained by donations and community contributions.
Read the full answer →