The plan to relocate Centre 454 away from St. Albans Anglican Church, which has been home to the centre for most of its 72 years, has caused deep concerns in the parish.
The most immediate concern is the January 2027 deadline to move the centre when a new location has yet been found.
Mary Martha Hale is a parishioner at St. Albans, but she was also the long-time executive director of the centre before she retired in 2014. “January is impossible,” she said, having overseen the only time the centre moved away from St. Albans (to a former office building on Murray Street). She said it took about 18 months to find a place, to go through community consultations to fit up the building, to plan and renovate, and also help the community adapt to the idea of the centre moving.
“But that’s if you can find a place. Twenty-seven years ago, when we found the place on Murray, we had to go before the Committee of Adjustment at the City. We had to go before the Lower Town Community Association and give them information about what we were planning, what kind of services we offer, and actually, we were able to engage one of the members of the community association to sit on our board.” In 2011, as that location was becoming too small to meet their needs, Bishop John Chapman, bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa at the time, invited them to come back to St. Albans, this time to occupy the whole basement not just half, and not as tenants of the parish but as a one of two ministries of the Diocese that would be partners in the building.
Considering the current situation, Hale asked, “Are they truly going to close a service for the homeless in downtown Ottawa in January? It would be extremely shameful for the City to close the centre in January with no alternative identified and prepared,” she said. “If that if that is going to go ahead. I’m going to be picketing at the City,” she vowed.
Belong Ottawa has sent a formal, written request to the City to extend its transition time at St. Albans.
St. Albans’ rector, the Rev. Michael Garner is concerned that finding a new location will be difficult. He asks if the City will provide funding for a new location, the move, as well for renovations to adapt a building for Centre 454’s needs.
But even if all of that comes together, he fears that many of the people Centre 454 currently serves won’t be able travel to its new location if it is to be outside of the municipal Ward 12. “A lot of the people who go to the centre are pretty significantly challenged through drug addiction, through homelessness through physical infirmities…. The crux of St. Albans’ concern is those people aren’t going to follow the centre because they live the shelters in that neighbourhood, on the streets in Sandy Hill/Lowertown.
“If those people aren’t able … to go to where the centre goes, who’s going to care for them? Who’s going to feed them? Who’s going to provide them with showers? Garner asked. “Even just the pragmatic issue of public washrooms in the downtown core. There aren’t many. One of the main public washrooms, especially now that the safe injection sites are closed, is Centre 454. Where are people going to go to the bathroom?”
Even though the bathrooms and showers would still exist in the church basement, Garner explained that serving that high acuity population requires professional staff to run and supervise the facility. “As a parish, we don’t have the capacity to run Centre 454 by ourselves…. But there’s still going to be a need for laundry… for food …for showers and all the amazing things the centre does… It’s the concern for the people who are literally our neighbours who we’ve been caring for.”
Both Hale and Garner thought that moving the centre would have negative consequences for residents in the broader area as well. As someone who attends St. Albans, Hale said, ”Every time I go to the church or by the church, I see people leaning up against the gate, and people are using or they’re helping each other, or they’re just sitting there. And then if the centre’s open, there’s fewer people on the street. Those numbers, I think, are going to climb,” she said.
Parishioners hope to meet with Bishop Kathryn Otley in the early fall for a collective discussion of the news of the move. Centre 454 has been an important part of the current parish’s identity since it returned in 2012. As the opioid crisis escalated, some parishioners even took training offered by Centre 454 since 2022, learning how to reverse overdoses with Naxolone kits and carry them with them. Garner says that parishioners have participated in reversing at least 10 overdoses, many of them on Sunday mornings.
“It’s part of the role of the church to be ministering to the vulnerable,’ said Hale. “These are human beings, and the people who I have been in relationship with at the centre are just like you and me, but they’ve just had horrible circumstances in their lives that have pushed them into homelessness.” She noted that being homeless makes people more vulnerable to predators in the drug trade.
“I always felt my work was my faith in action. And the relationships that are built, the lives that are supported, it flows in both directions. My life was enriched by my experiences at the centre. Just as I hope my being at the centre enriched others’ lives,” Hale said.
“The City has benefitted from the centre offering these services at a lower cost than if they had to provide them themselves,” Hale added, mentioning that Mayor Mark Sutcliffe praised Belong Ottawa’s work two years ago when he attended its 70th anniversary celebration.
Garner said there is a moral question at the heart of the situation. “’Housing first is a great tagline, and obviously, housing is great, but the road to have everyone housed is long. So even if the City has a 100% foolproof plan that is going to work, it probably takes 10 years, and in the meanwhile, we still have to take care of these populations.”
Saint Bede’s, Nolan’s Corners — Lanark Deanery