By Heather Miller
Few programs to keep teens off the street are available in Centretown now that the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa on Nepean Street has closed its doors.
Across the city, several groups run activities for youths. Many targeting high risk or high population areas – aiming to steer teens away from drugs and crime by offering them fun, safe ways to spend their evenings.
The Boys and Girls Club stopped running programs in Centretown because it said the area was being well served by other organizations and because it wanted to spend its limited budget on areas with higher need and fewer services.
“It’s no fair to say that Centretown doesn’t have needs but compared to communities of thousands, it wouldn’t be in my top 10,” says Claude Turgeon, executive director of Ottawa’s Boys and Girls Club.
The organization, which ran evening programs for youths until July 2000, tried to make members aware of other services in the area before it closed shop, says Turgeon.
The club staffed a drop-in at McNabb Community Centre last summer and still picks up teens from shelters near Centretown who used to use the Nepean Street site to take them to a clubhouse in Britannia.
But now, many teens find there are few places to hang out. The Door, a youth centre on Somerset Street, was overwhelmed when kids who were members of the Boys and Girls Club flocked to their drop-in nights.
“It was chaos,” says Michelle Raso, executive director of The Door.
“It’s hard to get 50 teens doing any sort of activity.”
The centre is open from 4:30 to 9p.m., Monday through Thursday, and has four people on duty including staff, volunteers, and students on work placements.
But the small facility, where members can practice break dancing, use the Internet, and get something healthy to eat, just doesn’t have enough in place to handle more than about 30 teens at a time, Raso says.
She says kids using the club now are not necessarily high risk, but “it’s hard to measure vandalism or theft that doesn’t happen — more trouble can happen out there than in here with some supervision.”
On a Tuesday night, about a dozen kids sit on worn chairs at The Door, chatting and playing cards.
“(If I wasn’t here) I’d probably just stay home or hang out with friends on the street,” says 20-year-old Tommy Le, who has used the centre for a couple years and now gets paid occasionally to clean up or make dinner.
Now in a typical winter slowdown, the club is looking to fix up its facility and bolster its programming on a small budget coming from the municipal government and revenues from bingos.
To do this, Raso is looking for input from users.
A “Survivor” competition is planned for later this spring. In addition to challenges such as scavenger hunts, teens will paint rooms and design an ultimate floor plan for the centre.
The club is also looking to team up with the YM/YWCA and the McNabb centre — which currently offers gym nights for youth on Mondays and Fridays.
This will provide Centretown youngsters with the kinds of physical and recreational activities the Boys and Girls Club used to offer.