Homeless youth should have chance to get away from downtown
thought this was just more of the same old story, in which shiny new developments in downtown Kitchener threaten to push out the poor and marginalized.
Although that is exactly what’s happening in many parts of the city core, there’s a different narrative developing right now on Queen Street South between Charles Street and Courtland Avenue.
Developer Stephen Litt wants to build a rental apartment tower on land now occupied by three buildings: 242 Queen St. S., where the Oneroof shelter for homeless youth operates; plus 254 and 262, houses that were occupied by businesses and are now empty.
The elegant yellow brick home at 254 Queen St S., once home to Bullas Travel, is already showing signs of distress. Needles and food wrappers litter the overgrown property. Obscene graffiti is written on the house and driveway.
Litt’s company suffered a setback this week when the city’s heritage committee advised that this building and 262 next door should not be demolished, as they are two examples of a declining number of late 19th-century buildings which are testament to the street’s historic significance.
As for the shelter at 242, it was built in 2007 and isn’t a heritage building, so the committee had no objection to it coming down.
But there are other reasons that it can’t just disappear.
For one thing, Litt’s company doesn’t own it. For another, it’s home to important work.
Oneroof provides housing and programming for young people aged 12 to 25 who have left home because it’s violent there, or there are family problems, or they’ve been kicked out.
Executive director Sandy Dietrich-Bell says 685 youth were served in 2017. They either stayed in the emergency shelter, or attended programs run by the agency.
Dietrich-Bell was surprised to see her building “approved” for demolition when her agency, the owner, has made no such application.
But she also said she’d be happy to move her agency and her clients out of the downtown.
The core isn’t the best place for her young clients.
“For many, it’s better if they aren’t downtown,” she said. “A lot of their triggers are downtown,” drug dealers for example.
So she’s willing to sell to Litt. But only for the right price, and if she can find a piece of land that’s large enough to rebuild, with the right zoning, and on a bus route so that residents can get to other social agencies for appointments.
Until all those stars are align I ed, there is no deal.
“We have no agreement and we have nowhere to go, so we’re not going anywhere.”
It’s interesting that the young people who live and attend programs at Oneroof want to stay away from downtown.
When light rail transit started to be built in the core, and land prices soared near the train line, there were concerns that lowerincome people would no longer be able to afford to live in the neighbourhood.
The idea that this population and the services they need might be better distributed throughout the city, instead of concentrated in the core, has been slow to settle. But it makes sense.
Life is more difficult than it used to be for marginalized young people who don’t have family support and may be leaving home with emotional and physical wounds.
It’s harder for them to find a job. The retail sector has collapsed. Even jobs in a coffee shop or fast-food restaurant are harder to find, because they’re now often competing with retired people.
The same goes for housing. It used to be easier to work with landlords who would rent an apartment or a room to a displaced young person on social assistance trying to make it on their own. But now that landlord has many other people trying to get that apartment.
Sometimes Dietrich-Bell says she’s trying to help a young person write a resumé, and there’s nothing to put on that resumé. No work experience. Not even an address.
Maybe Litt will get to build his apartment building on Queen Street, maybe he won’t. But his attempt has revealed something important about homeless youth.
If moving away from the downtown core will help them, we all should support that