{"id":46048,"date":"2021-03-15T15:49:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T19:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=46048"},"modified":"2021-03-15T15:49:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T19:49:19","slug":"conditions-of-overflow-shelters-underscore-housing-and-homeless-crisis-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/conditions-of-overflow-shelters-underscore-housing-and-homeless-crisis-in-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Conditions of overflow shelters underscore housing and homeless crisis in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Homeless shelters in Ottawa have been going over capacity since before the pandemic and many families have been relocated to emergency overflow housing units where they report unfit living conditions. <\/span><\/p>\n

The City of Ottawa pays landlords to use their motels and apartments as emergency overflow shelters for homeless families.<\/span><\/p>\n

The families living in these temporary housing units are \u201cbeing given a choice between bad and bad,\u201d says Gwen Madiba, president of Equal Chance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Equal Chance seeks to empower Black women and low-income families to see them thrive. With this group, Madiba visited families at the Tabor apartments, an overflow shelter in Vanier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She provided them with food hampers and visited them on a regular basis to hear about the conditions they are living in.<\/span><\/p>\n

She notes the families do not have any space in the apartments, saying she\u2019s seen families of over seven people in a one-bedroom apartment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou start wondering if that\u2019s even legal,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Madiba recalls a time she visited a family at the Tabor when the kids were attending their online classes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids couldn\u2019t hear the teachers because there was too much noise, they didn\u2019t have earphones, it was extremely difficult,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also notes various reports of rats and other vermin in the building, with many of the families saying they have a hard time sleeping at night because of the noise of rats in the walls.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome of [the families] have been there for two years so it\u2019s no longer temporary. It\u2019s their everyday reality,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Mar. 2, Madiba spoke on behalf of these families at the city\u2019s joint-committee meeting addressing the housing and homelessness issue in Ottawa.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you see the living conditions of these people, you\u2019ll understand that they can no longer reside in places like that,\u201d she said to Mayor Jim Watson and city councillors, noting the families she met with made it clear they want permanent housing.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, city council approved a long-range financial plan that commits funding and support to the objectives of the city\u2019s 10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

The financial plan grants $198.4 million over the next ten years to fully fund between 5,700-8,500 new affordable housing options and has the city on track to deliver 694 new affordable housing units by the end of 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been pleased to see recently that there has been a greater investment of various levels of government in affordable housing and we\u2019re hopeful that we will see some positive movement there,\u201d says Caroline Cox, senior manager of communications at Shepherds of Good Hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shepherds of Good Hope has been working with partners and the City of Ottawa, which operationalized various physical distancing centres and temporary shelters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cox says this is great, \u201cbut the real solution is housing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She says the massive numbers in their shelter pre-pandemic were already reflective of the major housing and homelessness crisis going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were at or over capacity every single night with a capacity of 268 beds,\u201d she says, noting the close proximity of the bunk beds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were regularly exceeding that up to 300 people and that\u2019s when we ran out of beds, there were mats on the floors, in the hallways, in no way a dignified environment for people to recover from anything,\u201d Cox adds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She also notes the high rates of BIPOC individuals within their shelters, noting some of their programs seeing up to 20 per cent of individuals are Indigenous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy thought on this has always been that any group that experiences marginalization, you will see disproportionately reflected in the homeless community, we do see that with BIPOC individuals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In her work and volunteering within the city\u2019s shelters and at the Tabor, Madiba was shocked to find the majority of individuals and families residing within them were BIPOC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2028She says only after visiting them frequently did the families feel comfortable sharing their stories with her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re afraid to speak up because they think that if they say something they\u2019re going to be seen as ungrateful and they might not be given housing,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Madiba co-founded Equal Chance after experiencing multiple instances of racism and discrimination as the only Black person in her workplace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought\u2026 I am a Black educated woman, I have a Master\u2019s degree, I have some credentials,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I am going through this, imagine the amount of other Black women, men, gender-diverse folks that are going through this and that are afraid to speak up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, Madiba received the United Way of Eastern Ontario\u2019s Community Builder Award-COVID-19 heroes edition for her dedication and work to assisting the most vulnerable people during the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

She says volunteering is her way of giving back. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been through so many challenges in my life and I know what it\u2019s like to be at the bottom and be ashamed,\u201d says Madiba.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve faced homelessness while I was a student at the University of Ottawa. I was embarrassed, I wasn\u2019t strong enough to call for help,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was extremely difficult, but I made it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we all have a collective responsibility as a society to use our resources to help those who need it most.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is Gwen Madiba speaking with CHUO:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homeless shelters in Ottawa have been going over capacity since before the pandemic and many families have been relocated to emergency overflow housing units where they report unfit living conditions. The City of Ottawa pays landlords to use their motels and apartments as emergency overflow shelters for homeless families. The families living in these temporary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":46179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[579,898,370,2335],"radio":[1290],"origine":[267,269,1571],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46048"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=46048"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=46048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}