Vanier residents demonstrate against Salvation Army ‘mega-shelter’ plan
Chanting “Hey-hey-ho-ho, megashelter has got to go,” at least 100 Vanier residents gathered outside a local condo building Tuesday night to voice their displeasure with Salvation Army plans to bring a new shelter into the community.
Inside 200 Lafontaine Ave., a private meeting had been scheduled between with members of the Salvation Army and the condo’s board and residents.
Outside, meanwhile, the message from demonstrators was very public, and very clear.
Rachel Robillard, 41, said she has lived in Vanier her whole life and has always known it to be a welcoming community.
“I’m not here against homelessness, I believe that everybody has a right to a home,” she said. “I just don’t think this is the solution and also there has been no public consultation.”
Last week, the Salvation Army announced it had decided to proceed with plans to relocate its residence and emergency shelter. The plans call for a 9,600-squaremetre multipurpose facility that would house its emergency shelter, day programs, medical facility, addiction services and administrative offices. A house on Ste. Anne Avenue would be demolished to provide a secondary access to the property. The shelter would offer 350 beds in total, 140 of them earmarked as emergency beds.
Statistically, the Vanier community has almost three times the social services of any other community in Ottawa, Robillard said. She said that if the shelter goes through that the community will be ghettoized.
“We are inviting, we are heterogeneous, we are OK with that; you need people from all different walks of life in order to create a community,” Robillard said.
Drew Dobson owns Finnigan’s Pub across the street and was one of the organizers of the protest.
“They say the politicians and the city staff have known about this process for a year or two and we find out four weeks ago — that’s not acceptable,” Dobson said.
“And then they continue this behaviour by having private information sessions with condominium corporations instead of consulting with the public.”
The Salvation Army’s communications director, Glenn van Gulik was in attendance at the public consultation last week at the Richelieu-Vanier community centre. He said that while he was lined up outside the community centre, he tried to address residents’ concerns and questions and to provide clarity about how the site will function. He said the organization is committed to continue consultations with various community groups.
Some residents are fearful of what the shelter could mean for their community.
“We just bought our house here, we were hoping to start our family here but this might change things,” Ericka Therrien said.
“We bought our house two years ago, and we thought that things in the neighbourhood would get better and that things would continue to get better and there could be a collective effort to help make things better,” said Therrien, 25.
Although Therrien fears for the future of her neighbourhood, she said that she is hopeful that a solution can be found and that she will be participating in any future community meetings or public consultations.
“Ultimately it’s up to the community, the stakeholders, the taxpayers to rally and get together,” Robillard said.
“The only way we’ll be heard is this way.”
We just bought our house here, we were hoping to start our family here but this might change things.