By Caroline Cox
When I first met Tereza, she welcomed me to her home at 208 Saint Andrew St. with a hug. She gave me a hard time about why I wasn’t married yet. But then she told me a story I will never forget. Tereza came to Canada from Sudan after witnessing the violence of a war that claimed the lives of her entire family. She self-medicated with alcohol to numb the pain of PTSD and undiagnosed schizophrenia.
Shepherds of Good Hope helped Tereza get her drinking under control, connected her with doctors, and found her a home with ongoing supports. Without supportive housing, Tereza might not be here today to tell her story.
We know housing is the solution to homelessness, and we’re proud to be a city-wide leader in supportive housing, with nearly 200 residents. But our goal is to have more beds in supportive housing than in our emergency shelter. This year, that goal will become a reality.
We are grateful to have the support of the City of Ottawa and the federal government’s Rapid Housing Initiative to redevelop our property at 216 Murray Street, and we are excited to share some details about it with you, our neighbours.
We are planning for a low-rise mixed-use building of approximately eight storeys.
The first floor will be a drop-in program for anyone in the community, open 16 hours a day. This is a much-needed resource in the ByWard Market, where many vulnerable people have nowhere to go and little to do during the day. Additionally, it will serve the needs of Lowertown residents who struggle to make ends meet.
The second floor will house our new soup kitchen, replacing our currently aging one at 233 Murray, which will become administrative space. Relocating the kitchen will address community safety issues inherent in people travelling back and forth through traffic to access meals.
The remaining floors will be comprised of approximately 40 housing units, prioritizing Indigenous individuals, and women. These will give people the stability and dignity of a home of their own, and reduce numbers in our emergency shelter.
For more information about the 216 Murray redevelopment, visit www.sghottawa.com/216
We know that stable housing, meaningful daily activity and social inclusion change lives and communities for the better. Over 90% of our supportive housing residents do not return to homelessness.
So why not build in the suburbs, where it cheaper and there are fewer negative influences? The short answer is, we are! We are soon opening up a 42-unit building in the East End, and creating 8 more units in our location in Kanata, for a total of 101. But we believe very strongly that people experiencing homelessness deserve the same level of choice about where and how they live as anyone else.
Many of the people we work with are accustomed to living in the downtown core. Everything they know, from community resources and social networks to transportation and medical supports, are located in this area. Transitioning to the suburbs can be rough, and there are those who just do not wish to live there. They want to make Lowertown their home, for many of the same reasons you do.
Paul was one of the first people I ever met at Shepherds of Good Hope. I was shocked when he told me that he had been living at Shepherds for 10 years. I didn’t know that Paul lived in a supportive-housing program, Hope Living. When that program moved to Kanata, Paul went too. But he didn’t feel like he fit in there. He missed his old neighbourhood, so he jumped at the opportunity to move to St. Andrew’s Residence. Now he greets me almost every morning, often with his catchphrase, “It’s a Pink Floyd Blue Sky Day!”
Shepherds of Good Hope is committed to doing our part toward ending chronic homelessness in Ottawa. We want to reduce the number of people staying in our shelter, like Paul and Tereza once did, because a shelter is not a home. We want to increase their opportunities to live full, dignified, meaningful lives in their own permanent homes. We hope that you will join us in offering homes for all, community for all and hope for all.
Caroline Cox is the Senior Manager of Communications, Community and Volunteer Services at Shepherds of Good Hope.