By Mark Fernandes
Hot on the heels of a poverty awareness campaign, the Centretown Community Health Centre leads a plan to create the first-ever laundry co-operative for low-income people in Centretown.
In collaboration with McLeod-Stewarton United Church, First United Church and others, the health centre last year tackled the problems facing the 120,000 people in Ottawa-Carleton who live below the poverty line.
Mark Bowles, one of the laundry organizers at the health centre, says the idea came out of the “People’s Hearings” held in March 1997. About 100 low-income people worked together to produce a written testimonial called People First.
“The people had an opportunity to talk about how they are suffering and what is difficult for them, and one of the issues that seemed fairly consistent was difficulty finding affordable laundry,” says Bowles.
In September, Karen Hill, an outreach worker for First United Church, proposed the idea of a laundry co-operative that would be owned and operated by low-income residents of Centretown.
In December, the group received a $5,000 grant from Ottawa Presbytery to purchase laundry machines.
Hill said the Centretown Laundry Co-operative needs more grants and planning this year. She says she hopes expenses in the second year will be covered by membership fees, and in the third year by service fees and local business investment.
Once the co-op is up and running, users will pay about $5 a month, says Bowles.
Hill says the laundry co-op targets the 4,000 families in Centretown who make less than $20,000 a year.
“What the laundry co-op can do for those with low incomes is give them some dignity, so that they can pursue employment and education,” says Maureen Moloughney, director of the Bronson Centre.
The anti-poverty group is eyeing the Bronson Centre as a potential location.
Moloughney says the Bronson Centre is an ideal location for the laundry co-operative because of its central location.
She is hesitant to make any commitments to the project, however.
“Our challenge here is finding space for that kind of activity… (to) make sure that it fits with what we are operating here now,” says Moloughney, who helps co-ordinate 26 programs at the centre.
“Many of our programs are working with people on fixed incomes. They, too, would see the advantage in the opportunity in having a laundry co-op here.”
She adds that the group must prove it will be able to cover not only its start-up costs, but also all its future operating costs. That includes a monthly rent at the Bronson Centre of $8 per square foot.
Bowles says the group is still in the working stages with the laundry co-op, but he remains optimistic about the plan.
“We are making people aware and getting community members involved, which is the most important thing right now,” he says.
“If we can develop a good structure here on how we can organize our laundry co-op so that it can make enough money to survive, and not be a detriment to anybody, then they could start popping up everywhere.”