This story was originally published October 15, 2018.
“Shame!” spectators screamed during a mayoral debate on the second floor of Tom Brown Arena. Then screams and shouts echoed through the room after mayoral candidate Ahmed Bouragba declared that there were 10,000 people who are homeless in Ottawa.
*Affordable housing in Ottawa has been subject to controversy in the 2018 mayoral debates. With a proposed mega homeless shelter heading to Vanier, many of the candidates question its necessity and propose alternative solutions.
The Salvation Army unveiled plans in September 2017 to move its shelter from Booth Street in downtown Ottawa to Montreal Road in Vanier. Council approved the Salvation Army’s plans of a new shelter in November 2017. This structure is often referred to as the “mega-shelter.” The new facility will be 9,600 square metres of new community space, costing around $53 million. The nickname and price tag of the shelter caught the attention of people who oppose the relocation of the Salvation Army Shelter to Vanier.
Mayoral candidate Clive Doucet is adamantly against the proposed mega-shelter. “The idea of a mega-shelter is crazy, it’s horrific, something out of a nightmare,” he says after a mayoral debate at Carleton University on October 2. Affordable housing is a fairly large issue in Doucet’s platform and he is campaigning to get people into affordable homes, rather than have people stay in a shelter. “We need to treat people like people,” he says.
Every candidate, with the exception of incumbent Mayor Jim Watson, disapproves of the relocation of the shelter and offers alternative solutions.
Candidate Moises Schachtler vowed to fix homelessness by “making it illegal to sleep on the streets or beg for money.” Schachtler draws inspiration from Switzerland, where homelessness is seen as a social issue. Hamid Alakozai suggested the mega shelter’s location is wrong, saying it would be better suited being built next to Amazon’s new distribution centre in Ottawa’s east-end because “that’s where jobs will be.”
Bruce McConville had pointed words for the current city council during the debate on October 9. “Let’s clear homeless out of the [Byward] Market to Vanier, so we can build more condos,” he describes the mindset of city council. At a debate on October 2, McConville called the plans for a new shelter, “archaic,” while emphasising that a focus should be put on getting the needy into homes rather than shelters.
McConville has openly supported SOS Vanier, an organization formed in opposition of the mega-shelter relocating to Vanier. The founder of the group, Drew Dobson, owns Finnegans Pub on Montreal Road and was motivated to start a movement when he learnt of the relocation of the shelter.
“It’s just a crazy idea, it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t make any sense,” Dobson says. “[Montreal Road is] supposed to be a commercial district for the local community. We strongly agree that we should be helping these people, we just disagree with how the city is doing it.”
Dobson says that residents in Vanier feel they were not heard by the City or the Salvation Army. Director of the Quartier-Vanier Business Improvement Areas (QVBIA), Nathalie Carrier referred to the QVBIA’s public statement regarding the issue. “The QVBIA proposes that the Salvation Army consider alternate locations…for its ambitious redevelopment project,” the public letter states. “the QVBIA would like to see greater efforts on behalf of the Salvation Army in its community consultation processes, ensuring that they take into consideration the general feedback of the community into its next steps in their project.”
Councillor Mark Taylor, who also serves as Deputy Mayor and liaison of housing and homelessness, describes the city’s housing-first approach to homelessness. “When we looked at it from a policy perspective, it just makes sense,” he says. “It costs a lot less to invest in housing, it costs less on emergency services, and from a human perspective, a lot of the things we want to provide people with: supports, services, all those kinds of things.”
One of the main problems of the city’s housing-first service is the sheer volume of people who need to use it. According to Taylor, approximately 10,000 people are on the waiting list for an affordable home, nearly three times the supply of homes in the city. He makes a special note that not all 10,000 people are homeless; they simply need an affordable home.
Taylor finds the mega-shelter a necessity because “the shelter system is currently maxed out.” According to the 2016 Government of Canada Shelter Capacity Report, there are 1,154 shelter beds in Ottawa. Due to the city unable to place people in affordable homes speedily, this amount is far too little, says Taylor who says there are approximately 2000 individuals in the city in need of shelter services.
Addressing the controversy of the mega-shelter, Taylor says “I voted in favour of their project and I think it’s unfortunate the project’s become a lightning rod in the way it has.” He says the public needs to realize the Salvation Army shelter is “in an old building that was a hotel at one point, it’s over 100 years old, it’s been retrofitted a 100 times. It’s not a purpose-built facility.”
“The secret sauce to making this work is going to be the dialogue between the Salvation Army and the community over the coming couple of years,” Taylor says, “before they even put a shovel in the ground. I guess the silver lining [to the mega-shelter controversy] is it brings people’s attention to the issue of homelessness and housing.”
According to Dobson, shovels may not hit the ground anytime in the near future. “I’m also one of the litigates to appeal the decision to the [Ontario Municipal Courts],” Dobson says. This is significant because “they are prohibited from doing anything until such time we get this adjudicated before the Ontario Municipal Court. So they can’t proceed any further, they can’t do any demolition, they can’t do any building, they can’t do a thing.” He estimates that shovels will only be ready to hit the ground in four to five years after legal and paperwork processes are complete.
The next steps for Dobson and SOS Vanier are to convince the new Council to revisit the issue. “No new council can be bound by the decisions of a previous council. In theory, a new council can undo what’s been done,” he says.
The future of the Salvation Army’s mega-shelter is still uncertain and will remain so until the municipal election unfolds. The election will be held on October 22.
Keith Bennett 