A single mother who was forced to flee Iran in the late 1980s moved into an affordable housing unit in downtown Ottawa with her four year-old daughter.
Anna, who didn’t want her real name used for safety reasons, was educated in her country, but worked minimum wage jobs as a dishwasher, cleaner at the Post Office, and at the Chateau Laurier.
Now, her daughter is graduating from the University of Ottawa with a degree in medicine.
“Affordable housing allowed her to bring a type of stability,” says Catherine Boucher of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation.
Boucher says situations such as this make the new housing development plan at Catherine and Metcalfe streets important to almost 9,500 households in Ottawa who are on the waiting list for affordable housing.
The Centretown-based corporation is a non-profit organization that owns almost 50 properties in the city, and provides almost 2,000 people with affordable housing.
Anna, a tenant who has lived in social housing under the Centretown organization for 17 years, says social housing truly makes a difference in people’s lives.
Almost in her 60s, Anna suffers health problems from the taxing jobs she has worked in Canada.
But she says living in social housing has improved her emotional health.
“If you get help, it helps your health, your mental peace, your sanity,” she says.
Anna also says that before affordable housing, she had to take night jobs and leave her daughter with a neighbour.
But after living in social housing, Anna says she could spend more time with her daughter.
“It helps myself and people like me more than you can imagine.”
The Centretown housing organization will knock down the current ambulance station and rebuild the paramedic depot along with more than 200 units of affordable housing, says Russell Mawby, the city’s director of housing.
“The community has wanted affordable housing on this site,” says Mawby. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
Mawby said the land was purchased for social housing by the region of Ottawa-Carleton in the early 1990s, but by the mid 1990s funding programs were cut.
Adam Taylor of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said in a recent report that tearing down the ambulance station was poorly planned and cost the city $600,000 to build four years ago.
But Coun. Diane Holmes said she has received positive feedback on the decision, and that the community has been supportive.
Holmes said the city didn’t know if the federal and provincial governments would provide more money to help build affordable housing at the site, so they built the paramedic station which is situated close to the Queensway on-ramp.
The housing organization will shoulder the cost of tearing down the old paramedic station and rebuilding it alongside the housing unit at no cost to the taxpayers.
Holmes says the location is ideal because it’s near the YMCA, which has a child care centre and it would be close to some schools.
Boucher says the housing units could also help members of the disabled community who might have mobility issues or live in a hospital or group home.