One Roof services to be scaled back
St. John’s Anglican Church may still be operating the One Roof Community Centre for the marginalized for the city for 2021 — but with deep service cutbacks to meet the municipal budget.
For years the city has contracted the church on Brock Street to serve free hot meals, plus offer daytime drop-in services as well as a cooling space in heatwaves and a warming room in cold snaps. But for the last four years the church has gone beyond those contracted services to better help marginalized people.
One Roof has offered daily dinners, for example, when it was contracted to serve only lunch, and has been open longer hours than the city contract specifies. It has meant its overall operating budget has consistently surpassed $400,000 annually — even though the city contract paid only $208,000 per year.
The church was able to offer the full service by applying for grants, fundraising and using volunteer help, states a city staff report. But in the pandemic, it’s no longer safe for volunteers to help, fundraising is severely curtailed and the church has limited staff to write grant applications.
It means the church — which was the only bidder on the contract — recently proposed to run the services for the city for $450,000 annually for the next three years when the city’s budget was $208,000 a year.
In the end the city and the church agreed on a one-year deal for 2021 that will cost the city $208,000, the report states — but with service reductions.
There will still be four hours of daily drop-in time, but reductions such as the following will be made:
Limit of 15 people in the centre at once.
No food or meals prepared on the spot anymore.
No activities organized by One Roof.
Councillors will consider awarding the contract at a general committee meeting on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday’s agenda:
Home energy retrofits
Councillors will hear that city staff has applied for a grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that would allow Peterborough to start a home energy retrofit program. Grants are available to cover 80 per cent of costs, to a maximum of $175,000, toward such a program.
Parking on Spillsbury Drive Councillors will consider a new city staff recommendation to prohibit street parking along Spillsbury Drive in areas between Parcells Crescent and Airport Road. joelle.kovach @peterboroughdaily.com