City to use Heron Road Community Centre to shelter homeless this winter

The city plans to turn the Heron Road Community Centre into a makeshift emergency shelter as of the end of November, displacing resources in a high-needs neighbourhood to deal with a worsening homelessness crisis.

The city's general manager of community and social services, Clara Freire,confirmed the decision in a memo to members of council Wednesday. In the memo, Freire said all shelters, pandemic-era distancing centres and overflow options are full.

According to the memo, using Heron Road Community Centre as a shelter is expected to add space for about 200 more people. The memo did not provide any timeline for when the centre would resume recreation programming.

"The demand on the system has grown exponentially, driven in large part by a significant and unprecedented impact of global migration," the memo said.

Heron Road Community Centre would become the third recreation facility to shelter the unhoused, and the second in Alta Vista Ward. Dempsey Community Centre has servedas a physical distancing centre since the pandemic, and is now accommodating dozens of homeless women.

Coun. Marty Carr, who represents the area, said she supports the city's efforts to find shelter for those in need. But she asks why the burden is repeatedly falling on disadvantaged communities.

"We are continually making choices where it is one vulnerable population or the other, and we are continually seeking out communities that are suffering from inequities," Carr said.

"I am hoping we can start to make choices that don't always disadvantage the same populations over and over again."

Carr said city community centres cannot become an ongoing stopgap for a homelessness crisis driven, in part, by an influx of migrants with nowhere to live.According to the city, about half of those now in Ottawa's adult singles shelters arrived in Canada in the past year.

Carr said the federal government, in particular, needs to do more to support settlement programs and affordable housing to create a permanent solution.

Heron Road Community Centre offers dance classes, piano lessons, summer camps, fitness classes and, most recently, a French-language play group. It has a gymnasium, a weight room, a theatre and a seniors' centre, as well as Carr's own ward office. It also hosts a food bank, though Carr said that will remain.

She said some services will be relocated to other facilities, though they'll be more difficult to access for nearby residents, especially if they don't have reliable transportation.

"It's a huge loss to the community," Carr said.

WATCH | The city councillor's reaction to the latest change:

Citys plans to turn Heron rec centre into emergency shelter a huge loss for the community

11 months ago

Duration 0:54

The city will be turning the Heron Road Community Centre into a makeshift emergency shelter as of the end of November. Coun. Marty Carr, who represents the area, said she supports the city's efforts to find shelter for those in need, but it shouldnt repeatedly fall on disadvantaged communities.

'Incredibly difficult' decision

The community centre is located in the Heron Gate neighbourhood, which has Ottawa's second worst ranking in the neighbourhood equity index, a measure of the disparity between areas based in part on levels of economic opportunity and population health.

Its median income is less than half the average for Ottawa as a whole, according to the 2016 census. Nearly half of the population is considered to below income, compared to about 12.5 per cent for the entirecity.

Last week, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and community services committee chair Laura Dudas announced an emergency shelter crisis task force in the face of projections that shelter demand could outstrip capacity by nearly 200 people this winter.

Dudas called the decision to use yet another community centre"incredibly difficult."

"We may see that there are additional spaces that have to be taken over to house people," she said on Wednesday.

"The last thing we want to do is use a recreation facility, or space that we should besupplying programming through for the city to house people, but we're in an emergency and we have to treat it as such."

Carr joined the task force, which has a chief aimto secure more shelter capacity by scouring all areas of the city. She said city staff, not the task force, selected Heron Road Community Centre.

All in a Day9:12The end of the month. That's when the Heron Road Community Centre will be turned into a makeshift emergency shelter

Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr says it's going to displace community programs in one of the city's neediest neighbourhoods.

At the time of the announcement, Sutcliffe said the Dempsey Community Centre and Bernard Grandmatre Arena in Vanier would likely remain makeshift centres throughout the winter.

Freire'smemo added that Dempsey andGrandmatre will continue in that role "for the foreseeable future." She added that staff are looking at adding capacity at those facilities.

"We acknowledge our emergency housing response has impacted local programming in the community and want to express our gratitude for the community's adaptability and support," the memo said.

"We are committed and continue to work towards exiting City community centres as soon as possible."