Outreach nurses from the Somerset West Community Health Centre are looking for new rooming houses as the urban development of Centretown leads landlords to upgrade buildings previously inhabited by low-income clients.
“Landlords are finding there (is) more money in renting to students or turning their buildings into higher-class rental apartments or condos,” says Tania Dorley, a mental health outreach nurse at the Eccles Street centre. “So we’re actually losing some of our rooming houses.”
Dorley attributes the trend to the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhoods, such as Chinatown and Hintonburg, and says that many new renters don’t require outreach services. Although the nurses frequently work on the streets of Centretown, most of their work with clients is done in rooming houses.
“In order to deliver healthcare to probably some of our most vulnerable people, you have to go to them – they won’t come to you,” says Rosemary Jones, the health centre’s resource development manager.
Street outreach nurses work predominantly with people who struggle with addictions and chronic mental illnesses, says Jones. “For them, coming into a building is a lot more difficult than meeting someone on their own turf.”
The health centre also has a team of outreach nurses that visits seniors in Centretown, she added.
Yvonne Makosz, a nurse practitioner, works with Dorley to provide practical assistance and prescriptions to clients. Together, Dorley and Makosz treat patients in Centretown on Tuesday afternoons, visiting up to 22 different rooming houses every month.
“The people who live in the rooming houses really have no place else to go,” says Makosz. “They’re awful places, but they are the only places where they can get shelter. So when they do close, it makes it very problematic for people to find other housing.”
The houses are largely inhabited by men and women struggling with addictions or suffering from mental health disorders. “People are moving in here who don’t want to have the drugs addicts on the streets. It’s g oing to be a real problem for housing and for shelter,” Makosz said.