With a membership purchase of $100 per year, your parish would be able to vote on decisions made annually at MHI’s AGM and thereby influence projects to be pursued.  Although $100 is a small sum, it is an indication of your parish’s wish to participate and contribute to the cause of providing affordable housing.

One long-term fundraising initiative of MHI is its annual Tulipathon.  This three-kilometre walk in Commissioners Park (the location of the Tulip Festival next to Dow’s Lake) raises money to subsidize ‘affordable housing’ for some MHI tenants. Participation in this activity puts safe housing in reach for many low-income families and individuals.

This year’s Tulipathon will take place on May 24 at 3 pm.  Each parish is encouraged to create a team and gather supporters in their community of friends and family.  Whether parishes have members who are walking, fundraising, donating, or sharing information they and their parish are part of something bigger.  Action by your parish will help to move the mission forward, especially as housing challenges in Ottawa continue to grow.

For more information : https://www.multifaithhousing.ca/tulipathon

The post Partnership with Multifaith Housing Initiative offers parishes opportunities to support housing justice appeared first on Perspective.

Two separate projects with similar goals are well under way. The Rev. Graham Singh has issued The Winnipeg Declaration with the goal of deploying faith-owned land and buildings for the public good, ending homelessness being “a core imperative.”  At the same time, the Faith Network has signed a Memorandum of Understanding for its incorporation within the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH).

The result will be more resources for parishes with interest but also concerns about starting affordable housing projects. And with the Faith Network, it will offer an opportunity for parishes that have created housing to share their experience for the benefit of others.

Singh is the founder of Relèven and incumbent of St Jax, an Anglican bilingual parish and community hub in Montreal. Relèven works to restore or repurpose under-utilized churches into community hubs and affordable housing. It has partnered with Anglican churches in the dioceses of Huron and Qu’Appelle.

Singh says the Winnipeg Declaration is “a balloon we floated to over 200 national and regional faith leaders, bishops and the equivalent, to ask, is this a good idea?” referring to a plan to encourage a national faith declaration and generate resources in the cause of ending homelessness?

The analysis of about 50 responses favored broadening the purpose to include the wider social impact of land deployment, understanding that the land is not all going to be used for homelessness only.

Singh is convening roundtables in cities across Canada and launching a website that will invite “faith communities and partners” to add their names as signatories or witnesses to the Winnipeg Declaration.  The site was scheduled to open on May 1, 2026. He says a roundtable in Edmonton led to the city offering a grant program for churches that are going through transitions.

Singh says the invitation to sign on to the Declaration, not legally binding, is intended to generate interest and activity. In an Anglican context, it could be a bishop, a rector, an interested parishioner or all three.

Meanwhile, Tim Richter, CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) reports that the Faith Network is coming together. “We have a steering committee, two great co-chairs, an MOU and terms of reference. Work on the toolkit is proceeding and the process for (hiring) a coordinator is about to begin.”

Singh’s Relèven and the Faith Network, Richter’s long-time aspiration for the Alliance, came together at the Alliance’s national conference last October in Montreal where the Faith Network was officially launched.

Singh floated the idea of a national faith declaration on ending homelessness, initially favourably received by Faith Network representatives. The two groups are in discussions about possible Relèven participation at the Alliance’s national conference in Winnipeg in November.

As the building process continues, the Faith Network will want to take into account the services already provided by Relèven, which offers a property strategy course and opportunities to work with Canada Mortgage and Housing’s Solutions Lab.

Garth Brown, co-chair of the its steering committee says the network plans to build a website that will include details of successfully completed projects, with a facility for interested parties to connect. “We’re trying to create a platform so that people don’t have to re-invent the wheel.”

Singh’s Winnipeg Declaration includes an undertaking to raise $5 million of “catalytic philanthropic investment” over three years. Funding is needed, he says, to help parishes overcome inevitable tensions that stand in the way of creating affordable housing.

He says the funding is needed to help create the conditions whereby the tensions can be managed well. “It does not happen for free.” He refers to the well-known NIMBY [not-in-my-backyard] factor — everyone is in favour of affordable housing as long as it’s not near their property.

“If you have a good community facilitator and you have good pre-development work for the site – the church, the neighbours, the community organizations —you can truly work together.”

He says he doesn’t “buy the phrase ‘surplus land’ easily.”  Before declaring land surplus, particularly before selling it to a for-profit developer, you should first determine whether it may be need by other partners — another church, a community organization — in the area.

*It’s The Winnipeg Declaration because Relèven has been working with several Winnipeg congregations, including All Saints Anglican, to create affordable housing.

The post Two new faith initiatives gather momentum to address the homelessness crisis appeared first on Perspective.

Since 2014 when the Diocese, under the leadership of Bishop John Chapman, set up what became the Homelessness and Affordable Housing Working Group, the City of Ottawa’s wait list for affordable housing has ballooned by almost 5,000 to 15,000 at the end of last year.

Appropriately then, nominees in the episcopal election were asked a question about their views on the diocesan ministry to people who are vulnerable.

The bishop-elect is a founding and continuing member of the working group that was rebranded as the Bishop’s Panel on Housing Justice (BPHJ) in 2024. In her written response to the question she offered two suggestions.

“We can connect in a deanery forum,’ she said, “to share, inspire and brainstorm opportunities and creative solutions to the challenges encountered as we minister to those in our local context.”

She also wanted to explore the creation of an advisory panel to raise awareness of the root causes of the increasing need in the diocese. This could lead to advocacy, with partners, to all levels of government for measures to address root causes and reduce the numbers in need.

At one of the pre-election forums, Moira Alie, chair of the Bishop’s Panel on Housing Justice, asked specifically about the prevailing urban and rural urban housing crisis. “What is your vision for the Diocese,” she said, “when it comes to affordable housing and housing justice?”

Alie said that while each candidate offered a unique vision for the Diocese’s path, it was “deeply encouraging to see a unanimous consensus: the Diocese has a fundamental, undeniable role to play in housing justice.”

Responding to Alie’s question, the Bishop-elect said housing justice is a core personal passion. She emphasized that the Diocese needs to stay active.

She highlighted that when the Diocese lacks expertise, it must proactively seek out experts. She pointed to the development of Hollyer House, (the Christ Church Bells Corners project that became a community hub with 35 affordable housing units) where she collaborated closely with experts to bridge the gap between vision and execution.

Ultimately, Otley argued that faith communities possess something unique, through their land and through volunteer networks. By mobilizing every parish, participating in advocacy and spreading awareness, she said she believes the Diocese can make a transformative impact on affordable housing.

She provided leadership at Christ Church Bells Corners as the parish decided to use available land for the creation of affordable housing.  For eight years, she was the chair of the Affordable Housing Action Group of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario.

In the written statement she saw brainstorming in deanery forums as way for every parish to be engaged, harking back to one of the goals of the original working group, the others being action, advocacy, learning and prayer.

Going forward, while the need has expanded, the Diocese is building on success that has come from the inspiration and dedication of parishes. The former working group established a campaign to create 125 new units with every parish engaged for the Diocese’s 125th anniversary in 2021.

With the opening of Hollyer House and Cornerstone Housing for Women’s Eccles Street residence 151 units were completed.

In 2024, then-Bishop (now Archbishop) Shane Parker renewed the working group’s mandate with the name change. Diocesan Synod endorsed new terms of reference that included providing advice to the Future Fund panel concerning grants related to affordable housing and homelessness and assisting parishes in reaching out to partners in their communities and working with them.

With construction under way on the Ellwood House extension at St. Thomas the Apostle Alta Vista and the Halton Street residence in Perth, led by St. James the Apostle, a further 50 units will likely be available by the end of the year. Both projects require fundraising that offers an opportunity for support.

With the exception of the Cornerstone residences, the efforts to create more affordable housing have been driven by parishes, with various forms of support from the Diocese such as seed money for feasibility work in Perth and fundraising for Hollyer House.

The post Housing justice advocates welcome bishop-elect with a track record of action on the issue appeared first on Perspective.

The innovative project, initiated by St. James, is led by a volunteer team of community leaders who have been able to generate broad community support.

Claire Smith, the co-chair with St. James’s David Kroetsch of Community Housing Project Perth (CHIP) says more than $150,000 has been raised towards the goal of $300,000.

It represents the grassroots portion of the $4.5 million total cost. Major funding of $2.5 million came from Lanark County whose waiting list has grown to about 460, including 300 in Perth. The town provided the land.

Smith is confident the goal will be reached “one handshake at a time.” The Perth and District Community Foundation has contributed $25,000, earmarked for an “Alongside Program” intended to offer support for household management to the new tenants. She emphasizes “how grateful we are to all the changemakers” – the donors who have made construction possible. The project is on track to open late this year.

In December, the Rev. Robert Camara replaced founding co-chair the Rev. Canon Ken Davis as rector of St. James after he retired. Calling CHIP a great outreach project, Camara looks forward to working with the steering committee to see it to completion.

“Our involvement and support is one way that we live out our baptismal promises to respect the dignity of every human being and loving our neighbour as ourselves.”

While CHIP characterizes grassroots donors as Changemakers, it recognizes “the village behind the building” as follows:

The Craftsmen, the Saumure Group of Companies with experience in building other affordable housing, “on- site daily, putting local hands to work to create high-quality, lasting homes for our neighbours.”

The Stewards: Carebridge Community Support will operate the building, ensuring that future tenants have the stability and support they need to thrive. Carebridge housing director Alison Newson says the project will help respond to a local crisis in which seniors, single parents and residents with disabilities struggle to secure permanent homes.

The Pillars: The support of Lanark County and the Town of Perth “proving that local government is committed to solving the housing shortage.”

CHIP might have added a fifth component — their own diverse Leadership group. In addition to co-chairs Claire Smith and David Kroetsch:

Stewart MacNabb, former director of finance at Carebridge, who is CHIP’s financial advisor.

Mac Girouard, former director of operations at Carebridge, became CHIP’s social media advisor, running an active Facebook presence as well as other effective outreach.

Linda Chaim, CHIP’s secretary, representative of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW), maintains strong relations with community partners.

Brian Perkin, former owner of the Perth radio station, who is in charge of communications.

The building at 63 Halton Street will offer a mix of rent geared to income (RGI) and affordable rental units. Affordable rent is set at 80 per cent of market rates. RGI rent is based on income and other eligibility factors. Tenants for RGI units will be selected from Lanark County Social Services’ wait list. Affordable rent placements will come from Carebridge’s own wait list.

The post Perth housing project advances with vital community leadership appeared first on Perspective.

They participated with about 60 other front-line providers in the Empathy Project, described by the organizer, Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, as an exercise in social policy education.

Each one assumed a persona—a person who needed help from multiple service providers—which was fictional but was expertly designed to reflect real-life experience.

They were given a list of service locations such as Service Ontario, a health care clinic and community housing service which were scattered around a multi-storey building of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

At the end of the exercise, some of their comments were: “meaningful and memorable…unsettling…very powerful… profound…overwhelmed at how awful it is…”

“The Empathy Project challenges participants to engage with the realities of navigating a complex and often dehumanizing system,” Moira Alie, chair of the Bishop’s Panel on Housing Justice, said. “Though the experience can be frustrating, its purpose is not to foster hopelessness, but to inspire action. If homelessness is a systemic problem, it is also a solvable one.” Alie is engagement manager at the alliance.

Mark Holzman, chair of Cornerstone’s board of directors, stepped into the situation of an Inuit man who had been living with his son and mother in Ottawa for two years, doing well enough to rent an apartment. Until, one day he was evicted, informed that the landlord was going to renovate. He was out on the street.

“I went to register on the housing list and was told it’s a six-year wait…There were a lot of people waiting at the shelter. Often the answer was, ‘No…no, we can’t help you, you need to go over there…no, you aren’t going to be helped today.’ That was unsettling.”

Holzman pointed out that in the simulation the “clients” had to walk up and down stairs to locations in a multi-storey building. In reality they would have to take a bus. And sometimes their first problem is getting bus tickets.

Anne Marie Hopkins, executive director of Cornerstone, assumed the role of Charles, a young immigrant refugee trying to get into a shelter and in need of disability support.

“I was not able to get my birth certificate because I didn’t have $35 to pay for it. Because of that I’m not able to get onto disability and get some income to get housing.”

Hopkins said it was a realistic reflection of the barriers that folks at the shelter face regularly. Cornerstone has a fund to help with issues like getting a birth certificate, and staff will accompany people to help them access services properly.

Shauna-marie Young, executive director of Belong Ottawa, stepped into the persona a black woman, a recent arrival to Canada who didn’t have her documents in order. She became ill, had to be hospitalized, losing her children to foster care. Upon discharge she struggled to find income and housing so her children could be returned.

As she walked from agency to agency, she found abject rejection, a lack of real support, a fatigue on the part of the providers when they had nothing to offer. “Imagine losing your children to care and being told, ‘There’s nothing I can do to help you. No, you can’t see your children’…Being in receipt of no, no, no, as kindly as it’s said, it’s still no, no, no.”

The Rev. Victoria Scott, a member of Belong Ottawa’s board of directors who has just been appointed as the director general for Anglican Community Ministries, was Charles, a 17-year-old who had been bounced around in foster care, suffered abuse and ended up on the street.

“Without any money, ID or connections other than a local shelter, I had to make my way through a day of navigating the system: going to Service Ontario to be told that I couldn’t apply for a birth certificate without the fee. I then went to the ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) office to be told I couldn’t apply without ID, an address and bank statements. I reached out to a landlord to be told I couldn’t apply for an apartment without proof that I was receiving ODSP. I went to the employment office to find a line so long that I had to leave in order to get back to the shelter to sign in before 4 pm.”

Scott said she knew people in similar situations when she was incumbent at St Luke’s, with its St Luke’s Table drop-in centre.  She was impressed by an approach that encourages empathy. “I often think there is a misconception that the church borrows social justice from politics but it’s gospel-based. It’s our baptismal vows. It’s what Jesus did.”

Simon Kinsman, newly-appointed chair of Belong Ottawa’s advisory board, assumed the persona of a single mother, struggling to support her own ailing mother and a son facing “renoviction.”

She had been managing financially but had to take unpaid time away from her work, spending days at the offices of service providers. She herself ended up being illegally evicted and turned to the emergency shelter for help.

“What stood out for me,” Kinsman said, “was how discouraging and even dehumanizing it is to be told no constantly. People facing homelessness continue to face life’s other challenges — a sick parent, job insecurity, without the safe space to rest and without a support network.”

“It made me incredibly proud of the work Belong Ottawa and the Anglican ministries do in providing that safe space.”

Kinsman said the project is valuable for the decision-makers to better understand how the system they have designed is experienced by the people who use it.

That’s the goal of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. It has been taken up by Ottawa and Pembroke city councils and is offered to medical and nursing students, anyone considering a caring profession, including teachers.

Raising awareness of how the system actually works is seen by all as a big step forward in reducing homelessness.

As Mark Holzman said: ”We hope the people making the rules can experience what it’s like. Do they really need all that information before they can provide a service? If you’re telling your story over and over again…Is there not a way to simplify that process?”

Cornerstone chair Mark Holzman (top), Cornerstone executive director Anne Marie Hopkins and Belong Ottawa’s Shauna-marie Young stepped into the shoes of homeless persons this winter.  Jesus Homeless, by Timothy Schmalz.

The post Empathy project takes front-line workers into the experience of homelessness appeared first on Perspective.

Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee of the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia and Paul Keherly of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal joined faith network co-chair Garth Brown of the St. Vincent de Paul Society as panelists for an inaugural presentation at the Montreal conference.

Although the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness has been active for 13 years, the significant work of faith communities in addressing homelessness has not been recognized in the organization – until now.

Rather, it’s been an aspiration of the alliance’s chief executive officer Tim Richter. He secured funding for a network coordinator but felt unable to move forward without a faith-based steering committee. He asked me [writer of this article] as someone who has served on the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s Episcopal Panel on Housing Justice for years, to help gather an interfaith group of interested people, and over the last year the steering committee has come together.

“Faith communities have always played a central role in responding to homelessness,” Richter said. “The faith network will allow communities across the country to work together, share great ideas and become a powerful voice in tackling the structural issues that create homelessness.”

About 70 delegates from across Canada attended the inaugural session, and many joined the network. Some gave impromptu presentations of their projects and experiences.

Bishop Greenwood-Lee told Perspective that she underlined the challenges of actually creating suitable housing. She noted that the overwhelming majority of the 2,300 delegates are front-line responders to homelessness or those with lived experience.

“They’re not building the housing as such,” she said. “They have different problems than we do when we’re trying to build housing.”

She suggested the network might share best practices in overcoming regulatory and social barriers in creating housing.

Garth Brown contacted the Rev. Graham Singh, incumbent of St. Jax, a bilingual Anglican parish and community hub in Montreal but more particularly the founder and chief executive officer of Relèven. Relèven specializes in working with closed churches and in the re-use and development of religious property.

Singh made the case for a national declaration on the use of redundant religious property to help house homeless people. It might include a pledge to make a percentage of land available.

Singh is already consulting CEO Tim Richter and his own religious contacts in Winnipeg, site of next year’s conference, to put it on the agenda.

“That kind of vision could create all kinds of possibilities and opportunities,” Brown said.

(Singh’s Relèven is working with the Anglican dioceses of Huron and Qu’Appelle on the re-use of property).

Regulatory red tape has been a particular problem according to Greenwood-Lee.  A project at St. John’s in Duncan was held up for six weeks, awaiting one signature.

“Finally, someone came out and was aghast that they were the problem,” she said. “Any work we can do in coalition, especially across sectors, to get municipalities to work with the provinces and the feds to get projects done faster would be huge.”

The alliance’s national conferences provide an opportunity for an important dialogue that was a focus of Paul Keherly’s presentation.

Bringing his extensive experience in mentoring homeless people, he stressed the need to listen to their views before decisions are made so that housing works for them.

His views are similar to those of the Rev. Maggie Helwig, rector of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church in Toronto, site of an encampment that has been forcibly removed, only to be re-settled:

“There is a reason people may find encampments a preferable way to live (as opposed to shelters or hotel rooms) — because they offer simple human community.  They are places where people look after each other.”

Another take-away for Keherly will be a recommendation that his own Diocese of Montreal survey individual parishes as well as other denominations and faiths. “Let’s find out what they are doing, or would like to do. Have they collaborated with other organizations? What are others doing? Can we collaborate? I’d like to see more done here.”

All of this is grist for mill of the steering committee in the coming weeks. The co-chair with Garth Brown is Laura Solberg, executive director of Kentro Christian Network. Members Amy Fisher, Salvation Army;  Fran Klodawsky, Multifaith Housing Initiative; Nuha Dwaikat-Shaer, assistant professor, social work at Wilfrid Laurier University; Dawn Campbell, Community Housing Transformation Centre; Jeff Wheeldon, municipal councillor, Brighton Ontario, chair, Brighton Homelessness Task Force; Amanda Doré, executive director, Centre de Jour St James/ St James Drop-in Centre, Montreal, Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee.

The post Faith network brings a national voice to work to end homelessness appeared first on Perspective.

Shovels were literally in the ground and foundations were laid in September at the Halton Street site in the town.

David Kroetsch is chair of the St. James Outreach Committee and co-chair of the steering committee of the Community Housing Initiative Perth (CHIP).  He is confident that, thanks to the experience and expertise of Carebridge Community Support and the Saumure Group contractor, the building will be welcoming tenants next year, probably in late summer.

More than 300 residents in Perth are waiting for a safe, affordable home. Across Lanark County, more than 600 people struggle to find housing within their means.

Kroetsch says the county, whose $2.5 million capital investment made the project possible, has provided an additional $700,000 in Ontario government Last Mile Funding.

Claire Smith, co-chair of fundraising, says the campaign to raise $300,000 is close to the $100,000 mark. The initial $10,000 came from St. James.

She is optimistic the goal will be achieved with increased support during the last quarter of the year, usually the best quarter for charitable donations. One of two prospective large donors has pledged but not yet delivered support.

Potential donors are savvy, she says, often asking how much goes to the cause. “In our case, it’s 100 per cent.”

The project originated when the St. James outreach committee decided to focus on affordable housing but realized the way forward would require broad-based community support.

St. James reached out to recruit prominent members of the community and contacted Carebridge, the Lanark County non-profit that operates 225 units across 35 properties.

“We were amateurs,” Kroetsch says. “We heard about Carebridge and contacted them. We could not have done it without them.” The CHIP team convinced Perth town council to transfer the land at 63 Halton St, to Carebridge as owner and operator.

Kroetsch says Carebridge has been instrumental in overcoming the objections of “only a few people” by going to their homes, discussing their concerns and providing accurate information.  The site is 40 feet from the nearest private property and adjacent green space will not be encroached.

Donations: www.perthhousing.ca

The post Construction begins for Perth affordable housing project appeared first on Perspective.

“We will start with abatement of hazardous materials and demolition of the old rectory, then proceed with our construction schedule,” said Janice Horton, board chair.

She said that while the board was waiting in September for final approvals from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), there was inadequate time to complete abatement work before freeze-up. This would have resulted in an excavation surrounded by fencing during the winter. Until spring, the rectory will be maintained and secured.

CMHC gave the project conditional approval in June, pending review of Ellwood’s lease agreement with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.

The lease was prepared with the Diocese’s legal counsel as well as with Kelly Santini, Ellwood’s counsel, a firm with extensive experience in development and construction law.

CMHC has conditionally approved $6,935,004 in financing, which Ellwood directors consider to be secure, along with $9,500,000 from the Ontario Building Faster Fund.  The CMHC funding includes $150,000 in pre-development support, $1,225,346 in a forgivable loan and the balance, $5,559,658, as mortgage.

The directors are in the process of hiring a fundraising consultant for a capital campaign. But until details with CMHC are finalized they don’t know how much they will need to raise.

MacDonald Brothers Construction have been engaged to undertake the work. The project on the campus of St. Thomas the Apostle Church will add 38 accessible and affordable one-bedroom apartments for seniors, more than doubling Ellwood’s capacity.  The original building on Braeside Avenue opened in 1988.

The project includes expansion of existing patio and lounge areas, expanded and upgraded parking, better and safer traffic and pedestrian routes and additional landscaping. As well, detailed upgrading to expand services for the entire campus of St. Thomas the Apostle and the Ellwood site is likely to take some months.

Top photo: St. Thomas’s former rectory, at right, will be coming down to make room for the Ellwood House expansion, shown in the drawing below.

The post Construction of Ellwood House extension set for spring appeared first on Perspective.

That was the shared view of a public-spirited developer and a dedicated Gatineau social worker.

On a cold Sunday afternoon in November of 2023 Jean-Pierre Poulin, president of Devcore Group, picked up a coffee at Tim Horton’s and went for a walk. He came upon the encampment of homeless people on the site of the old Robert Guertin Arena.

“I couldn’t believe how bad the problem had become,” he says. He bought eight more coffees and sat down to talk to the campers. “I was really touched.”

He felt that nobody was taking ownership for a serious community problem. “Why can’t we fix this?” he asked the mayor of Gatineau.

His own next step was heading up a campaign that raised $325,000 for a project to provide support to improve the lot of the campers.  At first heaters, lamps, beds and chairs were provided. But it soon became clear that the problem was far more complex and was not going to work, either financially or beneficially by improving spaces in tents.

He called Nancy Martineau, a social worker of 33 years with the local CLSC (Quebec health and social services agency). “I can’t do this alone,” he told her.  As part of her job, she had been checking on the welfare of the people in those tents.

When the CLSC refused her proposal to work part-time, devoting the other half to working with Poulin, she quit and went to work for Devcore. Poulin gave her the title, director of humanitarian affairs – an unusual job on the staff of a developer who owns and manages more than 3,000 housing units in Quebec and Ontario.

Working together, Martineau and Poulin eventually agreed that the “better way” would be converted shipping containers, adapted for safe and secure living as a transition out of homelessness.

Today, Village Transitiôn, a ground-breaking development on the site of the old arena, houses 38 residents who were previously in tents. Work is under way to expand the capacity to about 100.

Gatineau leased the city-owned land for 10 years to Transitiôn Quebec, a non-profit with Martineau as executive director and, for the first year, Poulin as chair. The city has a non-voting seat on the board.

The city connected all the units to water and sewer systems. Each unit has heating and air conditioning, television and internet, stainless steel sink, fridge and cupboard. Some units have a shower, others have access to a central shower room. Residents can even choose the colour of their curtains from a sample selection.

There are common laundry facilities, storage spaces, a community garden, dog park and space for bicycles. To come are a communal kitchen, a sheltered outdoor space and a centralized administration centre for services temporarily housed in units now adjacent to the entrance.

The entire “village” has been landscaped with grass and trees and is surrounded by security fencing.  Security cameras are monitored in one of the administration units. Three staff members are on site 24 hours a day.

Residents must pay 25 per cent of any income if they have any (earned or from social assistance) as rent for up to five years. They are required to have an exit plan that staff can help to develop. (Three residents have already moved out to subsidized housing). And they must abide by a set of rules. They are free to come and go but visitors are allowed strictly by arrangement.

Martineau says there is a lot of drug use, so staff work to ensure safe consumption.

Users are encouraged to place a red card in their window so staff can check on them every half hour.

Steve Moran, Gatineau councillor and commissioner for supporting the homeless, says the village is a step in the right direction: “These are not homes and we can’t be satisfied with just this project.”  But, he says, it is far better than living in a tent without adequate support.

Poulin says a similar project in Ottawa would be timely in view of increasing pressure on existing facilities. He has raised the subject with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and says he is open to participating in future projects. He sees it as a cost-effective solution for other cities.

Laurent Lavallée, Gatineau’s communications director, says the village has become the largest transition project dedicated to reducing homelessness in Quebec. “Many cities have reached out to us to understand how it was made,” he says.

It was made by the initiatives of Poulin and Martineau, corporate and private donors and governments stepping up with financing. It can be done, Poulin says, “if everybody chips in.”

The total cost is $7.8 million. The Devcore Group provided a $2.3 million loan. The City of Gatineau provided $750,000 for each of the first two years, the province’s “PSL” (rent supplement program) contributes between $850,000 and $900,000 a year.  And there has been verbal confirmation that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) will contribute $2.5 million through its Affordable Housing Innovation Fund.

Desjardins Financial Group has contributed $200,000, and Poulin is hoping for a much larger commitment.  “Chipping in,” Poulin points to free band-width for 10 years from the Quebec Internet provider Videotron. He is hoping for free power from Hydro Quebec.

Attractive as the “village” may be, some tents still exist at the site just beyond its fenced security area. Several tent dwellers are waiting for units in the village. But a few just prefer camping – an encampment, albeit much smaller, remains.

Cities have struggled to find solutions to the encampment phenomenon. The City of Ottawa dismantled a small one in the Byward Market only to find tents popping up elsewhere.

A fire at another of Ottawa’s encampments last year highlighted the need for safe, heated transitional structures like those in Village Transitiôn.

In Toronto, there has been an encampment on land adjacent to St. Stephens-in-the-Fields Anglican Church for three years.

The City of Toronto closed it, carefully booking hotel rooms for all the tent dwellers. In time, many of the same people were back at the encampment.

Writing in The Globe and Mail, the Rev. Maggie Helwig, the rector, offered this observation: “There is a reason people may find encampments a preferable way to live (as opposed to shelters or hotel rooms)—because they offer simple human community.”  They are places where people look after each other.

Village Transitiôn is less than a year old. But so far, the evidence points to success in moving homeless people out of tents, giving them that sense of support and community that will empower them to overcome challenges, heal and move to stable housing.

The Rev Maggie Helwig’s book, Encampment: Resistance, Grace and an Unhoused Community from Coach House Books is out now.

How to help support Village Transitiôn 

“Together, we can make a real difference,” Village Transitiôn says in its appeal for support.

Its commitment is that 100 per cent of all donations will be invested in the maintenance and enhancement of its transitional housing and supports for its residents.

This is a promising, innovative project in the Diocese of Ottawa that is worthy of support. “Participating is one way we can put our (baptismal) promise into action,” Archdeacon Kathryn Otley says. She is a member of the Bishop’s Panel on Housing Justice and successfully oversaw the Hollyer House project at Christ Church Bells Corners.

Archdeacon Otley continues, “Homelessness in our diocese has increased 268 per cent in the last five years. We are committed to addressing this issue through education, advocacy and action. Each year, we renew our baptismal covenant. One of the promises we make is to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human.”

Not all parishes can start affordable housing projects, but they can offer support to existing projects in other parishes such as Ellwood House at St. Thomas the Apostle in Ottawa or the Community Housing Initiative Perth that St. James has spearheaded, or projects like this one. Village Transitiôn receives donations and support from other Christian denominations.

The initiative respects the dignity of people who are experiencing homelessness by offering them an opportunity to safely and securely integrate into the community. It creates supportive connections and empowers individuals by setting expectations of personal accountability, individual responsibilities and bolstering autonomy.

Village Transitiôn empowers people, providing them with immediate shelter and psychosocial supports, giving them respect and hope, assuring them they are part of a compassionate community.  https://transitionquebec.org

The post How a coffee conversation led to a transitional housing project in Gatineau appeared first on Perspective.