Cornerstone, the downtown women’s emergency shelter and support centre, has successfully kicked off a $2-million fundraising campaign for new supportive housing with the announcement of a $1-million donation.
“It’s wonderful and overwhelming,” says Cornerstone director Sue Garvey. “It’s given us such a strong footing to start from now.”
The Pembroke-based Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Order made the donation at the official campaign launch at Christ Church Cathedral on Jan. 21. Cornerstone’s campaign is called “A Journey of Hope.”
The donation will go towards the $11.5-million building costs for a new and environmentally-friendly supportive housing unit at 314 Booth St.
Fay Edmonds, general superior of the Grey Sisters, said the order and Cornerstone, a ministry of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, are very much linked as carers of women and the poor.
The Grey Sisters are a congregation of the Grey Nuns of Montreal, a nearly 300-year-old order devoted to helping those in need.
The federal, provincial and municipal governments have also contributed more than $9 million to the project.
Ottawa mayoral candidate Jim Watson was one of many who attended the campaign launch. Watson was minister of municipal affairs and housing in December when the Ontario government made a $6.3-million donation.
“I think it’s a very practical way of helping women who are under tremendous stress and in distress to get out of the shelter system and get off the streets and get into their own home,” he says.
The government contributions, combined with the Grey Sisters' donation and about $500,000 in other private donations leaves Cornerstone with another $500,000 to raise.
The units at 314 Booth St. will provide long-term housing to 42 women in need, including 20 seniors. The four-storey building, using a high proportion of recycled, renewable and regionally-sourced materials, will also have more spacious communal rooms and a green backyard, says Garvey.
According to Garvey, it will be the first “purpose-built” facility offering housing and support for Ottawa’s homeless women and women in need.
“Women don’t just need an emergency shelter. They need a safe place to live, somewhere they can go to get through serious situations,” says Brian Sarjeant, media relations officer for the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.
“It’s not just a case of fundraising for the construction of the building, but for supporting Cornerstone afterwards, too.”
In November, 515 MacLaren St., one of the three shelter facilities Cornerstone currently operates, suffered a devastating fire that claimed the life of a 61-year-old woman.
Renovations are well underway at MacLaren and construction for the residence on Booth Street is set to begin in March, Garvey says.
Parishes and other community organizations are being asked to sponsor future rooms at Booth Street to provide housekeeping supplies and furniture.
Residents are expected to move in by April 2011.