Cornerstone Housing for Women had lots of reasons to celebrate in October and November. Not only did the residents of its Booth Street residence get to return to their newly renovated building that was damaged by a fire in June, but the fundraising campaign to help pay for the renovation quickly exceeded its target of $50,000, with a total of $65,000.
“Kudos to our community,” Cornerstone’s executive director Sarah Davis told Crosstalk, explaining that the call to help cover the expenses of restoring the Booth Street building after the fire was received with broad support from the community. “We were promoted by a number of radio shows. Sam Laprade has always been a really great supporter of Cornerstone, and she had us on her show. I had the opportunity to speak about the great news [that renovations were done] a couple of times, including on CTV,” Davis said. “Some of our long-time donors really stepped up yet again. It’s just Ottawa, our Cornerstone community, the diocese, everyone has really supported us to get the women home.”
It’s a happy ending to an incident that was a blow to Cornerstone during a difficult year when its emergency shelter had to be relocated during renovations and when women in its shelter suffered through the “Freedom Convoy” occupation of downtown Ottawa.
The Booth Street Housing Residence is home to 42 women and gender-diverse people. The residence provides a permanent, affordable home with 24-hour staff support to women over the age of 50 and to women who have complex mental health, mobility challenges, trauma, or substance use disorders. During the summer, residents were unexpectedly uprooted after a fire in one of the rooms and the effort to put it out led to extensive water and mold damage throughout the building.
“Honestly, it was shocking when we were told we had to move out,” said Ashley Jordan, senior program manager of the Booth Residence explained in a statement about the impact of the fire.. “The residents have been through so much over the last few years. For a lot of them this is the first time they’ve ever had a home. Knowing they were being ripped away from that was really difficult.”
They spent two and a half months in a sports facility while their residence was restored. “It was far from ideal,” said the Rev. Canon Dr. Peter John Hobbs, the director general of the Community Ministries told the annual Synod gathering of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa on Oct. 21. He added that he was pleased to announce that the women were moving back home that very afternoon.
Cornerstone staff turned the moving day into a welcome home party. “We had balloons, decorations. We really wanted to celebrate it, and not to be in the continued feeling of loss that we’ve had through COVID and through all of the different moves that our organization has gone through,” said Davis. “Really, it was a celebration of coming home and being all together again.
Deanery of East Ontario — Church of the Nativity, L’Orignal