I commend Centretown News for its coverage of the continuing saga of the Bronson Centre and the story about Heartwood House (Sept. 28). There are a few key points that require clarification, however.
The five groups that left the centre never demanded to be part of the appointed board of the Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, as reported. The idea of having at least one token representative to serve on behalf of the actual users of the building had been discussed among all 29 tenant organizations a number of times over the years and was simply refused yet again in September 2000.
All of the groups were less concerned about a formal relationship with the appointed board than having the opportunity to simply dialogue with the Sisters about the future of the building, and these requests were rejected again and again. It was soon after that the Sisters made clear for the first time that the centre was not going to be developed as a community , but rather was to be directly administered by the Sisters through a traditional landlord-tenant relationship.
Many organizations made significant investments (human, financial and material) on the basis of previous commitments by the Sisters to the concept of shared community development. Making use of a dormant asset to offer leased space to non-profit organizations is certainly a commendable idea. Empowering those organizations and the people they serve to take an authentic role in developing that space into a community would have been much more remarkable. It is the latter concept that appeals to the developers of Heartwood House and that is why we have taken the extraordinary step of joining with other like-minded community organizations to pursue that worthy dream.
Keenan Wellar
Community member,
Heartwood House