Even though it’s been blamed for crime, it’s been a safe place for people living on the streets of Ottawa
Frederick Renaud and Kimberley Sipes stand outside the Rideau Street McDonald’s and ask people for spare change. They say they’ve done this every day for the last six months.
The couple was surprised to see hundreds of people marching toward them on Sunday afternoon. Some of them were dressed as Ronald McDonald or boxes of french fries, and they carried signs that said “Rideau McDonald’s Farewell March.”
Sipes turned to Renaud with wide eyes and said in a low voice, “The McDonald’s is closing.” There was silence between them for a minute before Renaud said, “Bad news.”
The 47-year-old man pointed to the ground and said, “I live here.”
He pointed to the restaurant and said it was a “close place to go to the bathroom” and a place where homeless people could check in on each other.
Renaud said that even when he has no money, McDonald’s customers usually make sure he doesn’t go hungry.
He said, “It’s easy to steal something from them.”
‘Kindness within this city
But when the ByWard Market closes in the summer, Renaud doesn’t know where he will go or what will happen to his friends.
The McDonald’s has been at 99 Rideau St. since 1985, but the property manager for the building says it will close in April or May. The building’s owner, District Realty, confirmed to CBC in January that the franchisee had decided not to renew the lease.
The restaurant used to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but in 2019 it changed its hours because of complaints from the community, the police, and city hall about the many reports of crime in and around it.
Keith de Silvia-Legault, a 22-year-old University of Ottawa student who started the “farewell march” as a joke, said, “I think everyone has a story about it.”
De Silvia-Legault said that the original plan was to celebrate the longtime hangout, but he soon realized that “the most important thing is that it’s a cheap, warm meal in the winter.”
So, he kept the march going and asked people to bring non-perishable food items as donations for the Shepherds of Good Hope. He and a group of volunteers also put together a fundraiser, with the money going to non-profit groups like Operation Come Home.
Marchers were also asked to bring stuffed raccoons to remember a strange thing that happened at a restaurant in 2014, when a man pulled a baby raccoon out of his sweater during a fight.
Videos of the incident were widely shared online.
“We’re a strange group, but we’re a nice group,” de Silvia-Legault said. “There are kind people in this city.”
The pandemic made it clear that we need safe places
Michelle Hurtubise, who runs the Centretown Community Health Centre, says that the closing of the McDonald’s on Rideau Street takes away another “safe space” for homeless people in Ottawa.
She said that the restaurant was one of the few places where people could get shelter and a cheap meal when the weather was bad.
She said, “Now that there isn’t a break, there will be a lot more trouble on the streets.” “That’s a serious issue.”
But this isn’t a new problem. Hurtubise said that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp rise in the number of people living on the streets who need places where they can feel “safe and secure.”
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A survey is expected to show that the pandemic is pushing Ottawa’s homeless people out onto the streets.
Hurtubise said, “We really need to look at how we fill those spaces when places like McDonald’s close.” “And not just to look to McDonald’s to make them, but to really think and challenge ourselves as a community about how we can make that sense of belonging and community in other spaces we have in the city.”
Sipes, who is 17 years old, was still standing outside McDonald’s after the crowd passed by. She said she would miss the food and people she met there.
She said, “Now it’s time to look for a new McDonald’s somewhere else.”
