THE PROBLEM SOLVERS: MEET THE COTA TEAM
‘I can say I love my job, I can say I love the people in this building. I do — profoundly and deeply.’
Norine Thompson Manager of health, home and community program
“Starting this process, for me, it’s been a bit scary, a huge learning (experience) — like who are the folks here, what are their really deeper needs that can bring about the change that we’re hoping for? . . . One tenant had said, ‘You know, you come here, you work during the day and you go back to your homes in suburbia. What do you know about us?’ And they’re not wrong about that. And so, for me, that’s in my conscience, so I need to be very determined to learn to understand what are the keys that are going to make a difference.”
Susan Blakeley
Case manager
“You learn to define success in different ways and I think sometimes, you know, if you can bring a glimmer of light or some hope in a person’s day or a plan, you’re doing quite a lot. You might not be able to do it right away, but to me that’s very important to somehow facilitate and promote hope in a way that the person understands it and can feel it. That can be quite challenging, but to me that’s the most satisfactory part . . . I’m glad to be part of something that seems relevant and is starting to thrive.”
Pat Melnick
Supportive housing worker
“I can say I love my job, I can say I love the people in this building. I do — profoundly and deeply. I enjoy coming to work. I think this is an awesome community at 220 Oak. I think people here are very daring in that they allow us to continue working here and more people are showing up. There’s always a constant trickle of new faces showing up which tells me we’re doing something right. And it’s not boring. Every day is an adventure.”
Don Ford
Supportive housing worker
“With some people, it’s a slow, gradual process. There’s no light bulb moment, but there’s just little things that happen. When we first came, we struggled to have people coming and interacting with us and now we literally are overrun with people coming to the office to talk, to chat, to have a coffee, to tell us their woes, tell us their successes, too. We can see the difference in people . . . The best part of it is seeing the smiles on people’s faces, that they’re happy to see us.”
Olga Vaks
Case manager
“There are some people who are stuck, they’re alone. Not everybody has support. So, we do different things, like coming to island picnics, we have lunches, we have different things to connect and make people feel that they’re part of a community and to bring the different kind of folks together — some are young, some are old. For me, it’s really important to put the human touch to things, to the relationships. It always starts with a relationship.”
Luba Senkiw
Peer support specialist
“I live in TCHC housing and they’re all pretty much the same, it’s just this one happens to be worse than my apartment . . . There are a few residents that I might be a little bit intimidated by, but there’s a lot of them that are really good people and they’re just struggling to get by and it seems like there’s no one there to look out for them. There aren’t adequate services that people know about and they lack the basic needs like food and whatnot.”
Jennifer Rosser
Peer support specialist
“Success is something that’s defined by the person in recovery and successes can be small or big. So, some people have had a great experience of managing to get rid of bedbugs in their unit, finally getting a health card and accessing health care, but some things are smaller, like just getting involved in a volunteer activity and finding something positive to do, or learning about something like diabetes information . . . People in this building have told me that they’re glad that we’re here and that we’re making a positive impact.”