Community members and officials gathered to hash out solutions to homelessness which they say is a city-wide problem.
At the front of the room, the people running homeless shelters preached about the necessity for more affordable housing in the city. Politicians of all stripes vowed to work together and do everything in their power to make that happen.
But it was a voice from the crowd at Wednesday night’s community meeting in Centretown — a response to the death of a man known as “Roger” who froze to death on Jan. 6 on the corner of Elgin and Cooper Streets — that struck the loudest chord in addressing the crisis.
The provincial coroner’s office has yet to confirm a cause of death.
Aileen Leo, one of about 100 people in the crowd, said that for the crisis to truly hit home, the chaos needs to be seen and heard by those living outside of the downtown core, where the problems are most pronounced.
“Well, I’m trying to tell people that you need to get to the root of the problem, which is fear,” Leo said in a post-meeting interview with Postmedia.
“So many people think that it will never happen to me. They think ‘It’s tragic, but I’m OK.’ I think people have (sympathy), but they don’t really understand that there is a very thin line between people who are homeless and people who are not.”
Leo, who serves as communications director at the Ottawa Mission, cites the example of a depressed man she met at the Mission. After he told her he was dealing with dementia, he said he was aiming to “reactivate his license.”
She then learned that it was a license to practice law in Quebec.
“In other words, it can happen to doctors, lawyers, dentists, dancers, professors…literally anyone,” said Leo. “But until people realize it could happen to you or me, that’s when people are moved to being empathetic and engaging with elected officials directly. That’s what we need.”
Evening Update
The city declared homelessness as an emergency in 2020, but the situation has only become more dire since, with an estimated 3,000 people now homeless in the city. As has been well documented, asylum seekers are going directly to emergency shelters when they arrive in the city.
Leo says 61 percent of shelter residents are newcomers, which has pushed people into local community centres or onto the street.
The city is planning on building controversial tent-like structures near the Nepean Sportsplex and on Hearst Way in Kanata for asylum seekers, providing that the federal government pay for the construction and maintenance of the facilities. Earlier this week, the city posted that the cost of construction for the Nepean site would be up to $15 million.
Leo says Roger’s death, which was front-page news and led TV broadcasts, did turn some heads.
“I think people were shocked,” Leo said. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s devastating. But why do we need someone to die to take action? Do we really want people to sleep on the street when it’s 25 degrees below outside?”
During Wednesday’s meeting, which also included an online audience of another 100, the front-of-the-room panellists explained their visions about what has to happen to properly address homelessness.
The group included Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster, Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi, and Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden.
Chief among their battles is securing unused office space and land in the city to turn into additional housing.
Harden says there are more than 800 vacant provincial buildings in the province.
Naqvi is working towards converting the Jackson building, a nine-storey office tower owned by the federal government at the corner of Bank and Slater Streets, into housing.
“Housing is a human right, it’s not a partisan issue,” said Naqvi. “If all three levels of government can work together, we can solve the issue.”
The Ottawa Mission, Operation Come Home, Ottawa Salus and Options Housing also explained their programs and what’s needed to expand their services to get more homeless off the street.
It’s not easy, but fixing the crisis can be done, according to Mark MacAulay, president and CEO of Ottawa Salus, which provides a lifeline and stability for those suffering with mental illness.
“How do you eat an elephant?” asked MacAulay. “One bite at a time.”
Chef Ric, aka Ric Allen-Watson, whose food services business feeds 10,000 per week and teaches culinary skills to those in need of work, spoke about his own history as a teenager living on the streets in Kingston.
“When you’re homeless, people don’t look at you the same way,” he said. “I believe giving people the opportunity to get educated and knowing that people care about them really helps with homelessness. I know we need to find more solutions. People are obviously dying in the street and when I saw that (on Jan. 6)…that could have been me, if someone didn’t reach out to me.”
Troster echoed the Ottawa Mission’s Leo in trying to wake up people everywhere in the city to how acute the issue is.
“It’s our job as a city to solve emergencies and it has never been as bad as it is now,” Troster said. “We have a responsibility to make sure that nobody else dies on the street. And just like with a hurricane, you would come in and do emergency management and that’s the point where we’re at when it comes to homelessness.”
In her estimation, it should be a concern for the population of the entire city, not only in a few downtown wards, where homelessness and addiction issues are most prevalent.
“We need to spread this challenge across the city,” Troster said. “It’s also more humane. If people want to have access to services in their neighbourhood, they shouldn’t have to move from Stittsville to the (Byward) Market to get addiction support or find affordable housing. We need affordable housing and services in all 25 wards in the city.”
She asks people to try and put themselves in the shoes of those who have been left with no choice but to live on the streets.
“Everyone in the city has the capacity to be compassionate and to understand that any of us could be one bad stroke of luck away from misfortune,” Troster said. “We hear of people who might have a health problem that turns into an addiction. I would encourage people to really think hard about what they would do if that was their family member who was suffering like that.”
X: Citizenkwarren
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
