St. Albans — the upstairs neighbour

Belong Ottawa at Centre 454’s closest neighbour is St. Albans Anglican Church. Having shared the building since 2012, co-habiting is part of the DNA of the parish, said the Rev. Michael Garner. He estimates that about two-thirds of parishioners don’t live in the area and drive to attend St. Albans, so it is a conscious choice, he said. “For those people, it’s a sense of call and a sense of purpose,” he said.

About half of the 60 parishioners have taken training to be able to assess a person’s condition and administer Naloxone if they encounter someone they suspect has overdosed.

Parishioner Moira Alie described working as a team when they were called to help a man at the end of a Sunday service a couple of years ago. “I grabbed the Naloxone kits that the church had, and I also had my own Naloxone kit…,” she recalls. A couple of people had already started trying to resuscitate him with nasal sprays of Naloxone, but it wasn’t working. “I just kept handing them more and more of the Naloxone… and at the same time I called 911 and was giving the information to the dispatcher. It was looking really bad. The man was turning blue and was clearly without oxygen, but the Naloxone kits weren’t working. Every single one wasn’t until the last one that they used. Finally, he came to and actually stood up right away.” It’s helpful that a large number of people at St. Albans who know [what to do] and can act, she said.

Of course, there are challenges, Garner said, but in his two years in the parish, they have worked closely with 454 and trust has grown. In late July, the whole south wall of the church was defaced with graffiti. The centre staff let him know and sent photos. “We decided that it was too much to be reasonably cleaned by parishioners and centre staff, so we hired the graffiti company. They came in and cleaned it up. It was all done within eight hours,” he said. Both Centre 454 and the parish take a calm, proactive approach. “We’re just going to roll with these things,” he said.

The parish tries to champion Belong Ottawa and act as a bridge with the community.

Garner said it is important to realize what remarkable work the 454 staff does. “The Centre continues to rise to the challenge, but it’s crazy that we have social support workers doing frontline [first aid for overdoses.]” He hopes the City will provide funding for a nurse. “The Centre is being asked to do more with the same [resources] and the complexity is getting higher and higher. That’s really problematic.”

He added that he is inspired by the compassion, love and care program manager Dean Dewar and executive director Rachel Robinson approach the people who come to Centre 454 with. “It’s a lesson to me, I think it’s a lesson to the congregation that we continue to learn.”  

Related story: Belong Ottawa at Centre 454: Getting by with help from friends