City of Ottawa honours Belong Ottawa’s decades of service

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe helped celebrate the long history of care and service that Anglican Community Ministries day programs have provided in the city by declaring November 2024 Belong Ottawa Month at an anniversary party at St. John the Evangelist Church on Elgin St.

Belong Ottawa, which has three service sites, was celebrating the 70th anniversary of Centre 454, the 41st anniversary of St. Luke’s Table and the 40th anniversary of The Well. All three offer compassionate care to vulnerable people who struggle with issues such as poverty, homelessness, mental health and addictions.

“Congratulations on achieving this incredible moment,” the mayor said. “Seventy years of Belong Ottawa helping the most vulnerable people in our community. That really is remarkable.

“And I want to thank the entire Belong Ottawa team, the members of the team past and present, the staff, the volunteers, for everything you have done and continue to do and will do to support those experiencing homelessness or those who are precariously housed.

“For decades, this has been an amazing place where people can drop in … for a meal, a hot drink, and some companionship,” Sutcliffe added. “When they did, they were met always with compassion, with dignity, and with respect. That was true 70 years ago, and it’s still true today, even as we are facing unprecedented challenges in our city,” he said, mentioning higher levels of homelessness, a mental health crisis and substance use disorder.

The civic recognition was undoubtably welcome at a time when Centre 454 is facing intense pressure from some neighbours who oppose its presence to move out of its long-time location in the basement of St. Albans Anglican Church on King Edward Avenue and to relocate.

The Rev. Canon Peter John Hobbs, director general of the Anglican Community Ministries, shared a brief outline of Belong Ottawa’s history. The Anglican Social Services Centre began 70 years ago as a way to support men who were leaving prison, he explained. “From the beginning, the centre was swamped with work, and in its first decades, it moved to many locations… In 1976, the centre moved to St. Albans at 454 King Edward. And in an early exercise of rebranding, it became Centre 454.

“Forty years ago, The Well began at St. Luke’s Church before moving here [to St. John the Evangelist] a few years later, providing services to women and women with children.

“St. Luke’s Drop-in Centre and Lunch Club, began 41 years ago, started by a group of parishioners and it would be renamed St. Luke’s Table in 2013. And in 2021, these programs amalgamated, being branded, Belong Ottawa.”

Reviewing documents in the Diocesan Archives, Hobbs said it was fascinating to see a community in action. Although the names of the people involved have changed over the decades, “the core values in programs have held fast. Everybody is welcome, included, treated with dignity and respect,” he said.  Programs and services, though shifting in time and context, have also been consistent—providing basic needs, meals, laundries, showers, offering support navigating the system, referrals, advocacy, accompanying and creating community, social recreation, arts-based programs, spiritual care, outings and more.

“Sadly, what has also persisted is the need for our services in the social challenges facing our neighbourhoods,” he added. Archival documents referred to a lack of affordable housing, unsafe rooming houses, food insecurity, a lack of resources to address issues around poverty, trauma, addiction, and mental health, and the needs are now even more acute, he said.

“Today, though, is a moment of pause, to celebrate, to remember our remarkable grace-filled legacy of service to others,” he said. He noted that the celebration is a shared one. “From the beginning, we have always looked beyond ourselves to a greater community,” he said, giving thanks for “partnerships with other agencies, other churches, so, so many donors, and three levels of government, especially the city of Ottawa.”

Community development manager Liz de Melo has worked with Belong Ottawa in various roles for 25 years. She described how the three agencies rose to the challenge of the pandemic.

“We pooled all of our resources to help to address food insecurity and isolation that people were experiencing while delivering food to people’s homes and offering street outreach,” and gradually merged into Belong Ottawa.

“Over these years, I’ve had the opportunity to celebrate, grieve, support, and offer hope to those who call us family.…We at Belong Ottawa are described by some as a living room of the poor and a place for someone, anyone, to just be without judgment. The past few years have presented many challenges because of the pandemic, the abject poverty, the drug epidemic, and the ongoing and worsening lack of affordable housing,” she said. Participants in the programs are often described as resilient, and that is a term she agrees with, but de Melo cautioned that resiliency is not a state they aspire to achieve.

She read a few lines from Louisiana writer Zandashe L’orelia Brown: “I dream of never being called resilient again in my life. I’m exhausted by strength. I want support. I want softness. I want ease. I want to be amongst the kin, not patted on the back for how well I take a hit, or for how many.”

Bishop Shane Parker thanked Mayor Sutcliffe for the honour he had bestowed on Belong Ottawa and for his and the City’s support. Many years ago, the Anglicans who started what has now become Belong Ottawa “looked around them and saw other human beings who were experiencing distress or marginalization or poverty. And they saw it with their eyes and then they felt it in their hearts, and then they chose to act,” the bishop said. And they invited other people of compassion to come and work with them, and in doing so, they created a sanctuary where “everyone has the opportunity to be received, to be valued, to be seen as a whole person without judgment and made to feel that they belong. Thank each of you for participating with us in creating sanctuary. Thank you for your hearts of compassion, for your hearts of love, and thank you for sharing this wonderful celebration today.”