By Tobin Dalrymple
Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on a $4-million building project in Centretown, completing what will be Ottawa’s first – and much-needed – homeless shelter for young men.
The federal government spent between $3.8 and $4.2 million to upgrade the downtown building, which should be open to clients by the summer, says Normand St-Georges, the young men’s shelter co-ordinator.
“It’s really exciting and long overdue that young men are going to be housed in their own shelter,” says Judy Perley, a social housing coordinator at the YMCA, where homeless young men currently reside.
The city will provide the new centre’s operating costs on an “ongoing basis,” says Ottawa Housing spokesperson Barry Campbell. He said it will cost roughly $444,000 a year to cover food and shelter for the 30-bed facility.
The shelter – which should be ready to house young men, aged 16-21, about a month after construction ends – is long overdue, say some anti-poverty activists.
“This shelter should have been built 10 years ago,” says Raphaelle Ferland, 17, an employee at the Youth Services Bureau, the homeless drop-in centre that runs Ottawa’s young women’s shelter.
Russell Mawby, housing director for the City of Ottawa, was unavailable to comment.
Ferland knows from personal experience how important youth-oriented shelters are.
At the age of 16, she was homeless and sleeping on the streets. But when she became severely ill with strep throat, she went to the young women’s shelter. The all-female youth shelter, established in 1995, helped Ferland get medical treatment, find a job and go back to school, she says.
There has never been the same quality of help available for young men in Ottawa, she says. Until the men’s facility opens, male youths in need of shelter must go to the YMCA on Argyle Avenue, or to the Salvation Army, and bunk-up next to men and women of various ages.
But young men’s needs are different than adult needs, and it is difficult to serve youth within the existing system, says Perley.
“At the YMCA, [clients] don’t have someone there all the time, or someone who knows exactly what you need,” says Ferland.
“But at youth shelters,” she added, “they know what’s happening and they are on the ball.”
The new shelter will provide temporary and long-term services designed to make young men self-sufficient, says St-Georges.
The shelter will have 12 beds for emergencies, and 12 mini-apartments for transitional aid – rooms meant to help clients find jobs and housing and gain life skills. The additional six beds are designed for “overflow,” says St-Georges.
Three staff members will be on site 24 hours a day to address specific problems that youth face, such as family crises or sexual abuse, says St-Georges.
Currently, young men have access to 12 beds at the YMCA, confined to a general social housing area for men and women called Second Stages. The makeshift set-up is dubbed the “temporary young men’s shelter,” Perley says.
When the doors open, young men staying at the YMCA will be able to transfer to the new facility.
The shelter will be operated by the Youth Services Bureau, the organization that released its 2006 Ottawa report card on homelessness last month.
The report graded the city’s progress in four sectors and gave Ottawa a “D” for homelessness. An increase to 607 homeless youth from 543 the previous year prompted the weak grade.
The report demanded that the city work with all levels of government to create 1,000 social housing units and reduce homelessness 15 per cent by 2008.
The exact location of the young men’s shelter is kept confidential to ensure the safety of the clients, says St-Georges.
Word of mouth and personal referrals will be the main tool to inform youth about the shelter. Sometime next month volunteers at the Youth Service Bureau will begin touring existing shelters and drop-in centres to “spread the word” about the new facility.