Canada Post locates 59 missing Street Help donations

Street Help Homeless Centre administrator Christine Wilson-furlonger issued a relieved “Yay” Monday, after learning Canada Post had located 59 of the cheque-containing envelopes that went missing in the mail.

She said she’s clearly hoping more than the 59 will show up to help fund the homeless centre, which has been slammed by rising demand and costs during the COVID-19 pandemic. She doesn’t understand why the envelopes were held up.

“They’re trying to figure something out,” Wilson-furlonger said shortly after being contacted by Canada Post. “It’s a mystery to me, but that’s OK as long as our mail starts showing up.”

The self-addressed, stamped envelopes were included in the homeless centre’s April 7 Easter newsletter, seeking financial help from about 1,400 donors. None of the envelopes had arrived by Friday, and multiple donors had contacted Wilson-furlonger asking why their cheques hadn’t been cashed. So she alerted the media about the missing mail.

Canada Post assured the Star Friday it was looking into the matter. On Monday, Canada Post emailed the Star, indicating the mail had been wrongly diverted to a processing plant in the Greater Toronto Area.

“We can confirm that 59 pieces of mail for the Street Help Homeless Centre have been located by our regional operations teams,” the email said. “The mail is being sent to the centre and we will monitor it through our system as we understand the importance and urgency that they receive the donations.”

The email also said that Canada Post officials are in direct contact with Street Help, “and are committed to resolve this unfortunate incident as quickly as possible.”

Wilson-furlonger said she’s hoping the envelopes will arrive this week.

The envelopes were printed and stamped by Street Help’s printer according to Canada Post protocols, she said. They had Street Help’s regular address but a different postal code which Canada Post said was necessary to route them to an alternate sorting system which counts up all the envelopes and bills Street Help accordingly, Wilson-furlonger said.

She said she’s been assured that Canada Post is investigating and searching for additional envelopes.

“They’re continuing to look for more,” she said.

She said when she receives the envelopes, she intends on including a note explaining the delay in cashing the cheques that she’ll send out with the donor’s tax receipt.