Some of Ottawa’s homeless people could stay at Vanier Arena or Heron Community Center
A city memo says that a short-term plan to try to keep homeless shelters from getting too crowded in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue at least until the end of the summer because the need for shelter space is still high.
Chris Tuck, who is in charge of employment and social services in Ottawa, told the Vanier Community Association at a meeting earlier this month that “our shelter system is at its breaking point.”
“Now that the pandemic is over, the number of homeless people is unfortunately going up.”
At the end of March, Ottawa will lose its physical distancing center at the Saint-Louis Ottawa Jail Hostel on Nicholas Street, and in April, it will lose its space at the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre. To make up for the loss of beds, the city said it would open a temporary homeless shelter for 74 men at the Bernard Grandmaitre Arena in Vanier until mid-August and another one for 100 people at the Heron Community Center until the end of April.
Before becoming an arena this winter, Bernard Grandmaitre had been a temporary shelter called a “respite center,” while the Heron Community Center had been a “physical distancing center” or “temporary shelter” earlier in the pandemic.
The Dempsey Community Center will keep running, and up to 57 women will be able to stay there.
A motion to stop making temporary fixe
Alta Vista Councilman Marty Carr plans to introduce a motion on Tuesday to ask staff to come up with a plan to help homeless people find more permanent housing and stop using temporary shelters.
What was supposed to be a pilot that would last six months ended up taking two years.Rideau-Vanier Councillor Stephanie Plante
She told the Vanier meeting that temporary shelters have been in Carr’s ward since September 2020. Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante agrees with the idea.
Plante is worried that the Vanier Arena will still be a shelter after August. Earlier in the pandemic, the city only used it as a daytime rest center.
“What was supposed to be a six-month pilot turned into a two-year project,” she said.
Plante is also worried that having 74 new clients at the arena could lead to more people using needles. He doesn’t think the facility, which has a dorm on the ice pad area, is the best place for people who are weak.
“No matter how bad things get, everyone deserves a roof over their heads.” “They deserve a key, but I don’t think this gives it to them,” she told me.
There aren’t enough programs in low-income areas
Chris Greenshields, the interim president of the Vanier Community Association, said that the community had hoped to use the arena for indoor basketball or lacrosse this summer.
The arena is one of the few places for recreation in the low-income neighborhood, and Greenshields said that his group has been pushing the city to start some programs for young people and older people.
“It’s funny that the city picked this place [as a temporary shelter] because there are no activities,” he said.
Carr says that the city-run shelters have a lot going for them. They are open all day so people don’t get kicked out, they are not religious, and they offer a lot of help.
She said that the homeless people didn’t have much of an effect on the community in Alta Vista. The main effect was that recreation services were cut and community centers were used for other things.
A report on the city will come later, in 2023
The city of Ottawa is facing a number of problems that mean it needs shelters quickly. Tuck said that there is always a growing need for affordable housing and a shortage of it. The federal government said that it moved 702 asylum seekers to Ottawa in the last eight months. These people often need shelter services for a while.
The city is also thinking about a recent court decision in Waterloo, which said that the city could not take down a camp without first making sure there was enough shelter space. Tuck says that Ottawa cleared out 343 camps just in the past year.
In the second quarter of 2023, city staff plan to bring a report on short-term and long-term ways to deal with homelessness.
Last year, 4,031 single people in Ottawa stayed at shelters. Most people stayed for 70 days. In 2019, 4,796 single people stayed in shelters for an average of 64 days.
Permanent, transitional, and supportive housing options are being built this spring and summer, with 107 single-person units set to open. However, they will only be able to house a small portion of the homeless.