It’s 9:30 a.m on a chilly early fall morning, and the outdoor courtyard of St. Albans Church on King Edward is a busy spot with people coming and going, eating the breakfast they’ve just been served inside at Centre 454. It’s one of three Belong Ottawa day program locations downtown run by the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, and it has been serving people in need from the church basement for most of its 72 years.
Mark MacDonald is sitting on a bench in the dappled sunlight observing the whole scene in the courtyard, waiting to begin an interview with Perspective. A retired senior army officer and university professor, MacDonald is now deeply engaged as an advocate for people who are experiencing homelessness and for veterans. But part of what makes him such an effective voice on housing and homelessness is the fact that not so many years ago, he experienced homelessness.
“I was living in the shelter at the Salvation Army, which is very close to Centre 454, so during that period of homelessness, I actively used the facilities here a lot,” he said.
Day programs like Centre 454 are “not well understood because they provide services to homeless people who are largely invisible to the rest of the world,” MacDonald explained. “They’re essential, and they operate in coordination with shelters. The shelters ask the people to leave during the day.”
Just having a safe place to be during the day is a much bigger challenge than many people realize. “If you sit on the sidewalk, you’ll be given a hard time by the authorities… Often people are carrying a lot of their belongings because they’re afraid they’ll be stolen, the malls don’t like that,” MacDonald explains. “No facility is prepared to deal with a large number of homeless people every day, all day, every day.” Day programs are critical, especially in the winter, he said, noting also that some people who come to the day programs may be housed, but they may not have enough money for food, or they come because their social or emotional needs are met.
MacDonald said he used to look forward to going to Centre 454 for a coffee as soon as he left the shelter where he stayed. “It was the mainstay of my morning…. It was nice. I felt supported. I could call people on the phone. … I could have a shower. I could do my laundry once in a while, and these were all important things to do, and they were very difficult to do at the shelter. Here, you can book a time and it’s very civilized. … That kind of personal support for everybody makes this place kind of like an oasis,” he says. And beyond those practical concrete supports, what people find at the Belong Ottawa day programs is “a sense of belonging and a place to socially, emotionally get support, to make friends, [to get] help navigating some of the complexities of homelessness.”
MacDonald says he had a sense even during this difficult time that his homelessness was temporary, and fortunately it was. He now works with the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa and works at a city policy level as a representative at the Housing and Homelessness Leadership Table, the Severe Weather Planning Table, and also the Ottawa Veterans Task Force.
His reason for revisiting Centre 454 on this day is because the place that offered him refuge is now facing a homelessness crisis of its own. The City of Ottawa has asked Centre 454 to relocate from St. Albans by January 31, 2027. Belong Ottawa has formally requested an extension of that timeline and shared a feasibility study with the City, mayor and councillors. And as of Oct. 1, more than 1,200 letters of support for an extension had been sent to the City by concerned individuals. Executive director Shauna-marie Young said, “We want to protect the services, preserve the relationships, and ensure that any transition is done thoughtfully—with the people who rely on Centre 454 at the centre of the conversation.”
MacDonald is lending his voice to that call. A January deadline makes no sense, he said. “There is dangerously cold weather…. It exposes people to great risk…. The fact that this place is open and warm every day of the week and provides a place for a lot of people to go, massively reduces the risk,” he says. “Moving something like 454 to me should only be done in a much more temperate period. And you can’t also take people that have nowhere to go and push them out in the snow. It’ll spill over onto all the other supporting organizations, and it’ll be chaotic. People will get hurt, I think, by the cold weather….We work so hard to prevent that. I think it has to stay open till, as a minimum, until it’s warm.”
And while Belong Ottawa is only asking for more time to transition to a new place, MacDonald believes that the best outcome would be if Centre 454 didn’t have to move at all. “One reason it’s so popular and so important is it sits very close to the three main shelters. …You can walk to 454, and that’s essential for people….No one will provide transportation, so you’re going to have to get yourself to the new facility, if there is a new facility. And where is that going to be?” He points out that a bus ticket is $4.15 one way, money people on the streets don’t have. “You can say there’s too many facilities in this small area. Well, that’s why. Because they need to be. They’re mutually supporting. They need to be in the same area.”
“I find it very hard to advocate for any message other than don’t move 454,” he said. “I know many good people are working on it, trying to get this figured out geographically and from a facility point of view. But I would be concerned as well, and this is counterintuitive, as to what happens here if 454 leaves. What happens to this area of Sandy Hill and Lowertown? …Safe injection sites have been removed…so the system is dealing with that. And if we were to lose 454, that’s another loss in the system. Where are people going to go and what are they going to do?”
MacDonald says it is important to understand that anyone can become homeless. “It happened to me, and I think it can happen to anybody… It can happen very quickly…Sometimes it is one month…two months, but that’s all it takes. You have no income for two months. Things start, and they cascade. It might be the loss of the apartment, might be the loss of your car, so you can’t go to work so you lose your job. Everybody’s got a different [experience], but we all have to help. They don’t cease to be people because they’re homeless. We need to be sure that we support people.”
When asked how others can help, MacDonald says, “It’s a city level issue, so I would strongly advise people to make their wishes known to their local councillor whichever ward it is. They’re all on the council, they’re all relevant.
Supporters of Belong Ottawa’s request for an extension of their transition time at St. Albans can also help by joining a letter-writing campaign: https://belongottawa.ca/blog/centre454advocacy/
La prière de Jésus et la mort