Salvation Army's relocation plan tests the city on the future of Vanier
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 13, 2017 | Last Updated: November 13, 2017 1:01 PM EST
The future of Vanier hinges on a city council vote on an application by the Salvation Army to relocate its emergency shelter and health services from the ByWard Market to Montreal Road.
That’s how opponents of the proposal are characterizing the upcoming decision at Ottawa City Hall.
On the other hand, the Salvation Army believes a purpose-built complex at 333 Montreal Rd. is the only answer to moving its Booth Centre out of the Market and providing a better service to low-income families.
This is a prediction by Marc Provost, the executive director of the Salvation Army Booth Centre, of how Vanier residents will eventually view the complex: “Once they see the reality of it, once they see the families are going there and coming out with bags of toys and things are OK and that people are getting help and that people are getting housed, once they see the reality of it, they’ll be, ‘This is good. This is good.’”
Here’s what S.O.S. Vanier founder Drew Dobson predicts: “I think that residents that are more affluent will leave Vanier. I think they’ll be replaced by less-affluent residents and you’ll get a poorer community and I believe if you take a picture of any shelter in Ottawa right now, of the outside of the shelter, that will be what Montreal Road looks like outside of their facility.”
The “mega shelter” will bring more pawnshops and payday loan joints, and certainly no Starbucks shops, Dobson said.
According to the Salvation Army, the “community hub” will bring more economic activity to the commercial strip.
The first test of the Salvation Army’s development application will be at council’s planning committee this week. The committee is meeting on Tuesday in council chambers and will continue the debate on Wednesday and Friday if necessary.
The Salvation Army’s blueprint for 333 Montreal Rd.
The Salvation Army identified 333 Montreal Rd. as its preferred site because it’s on a bus route, within walking distance to other social services, and centrally located for its clients. The complex would replace the Concorde Motel.
The 9,600-square-metre, H-shaped building would have 140 emergency shelter beds, 100 beds for men in various support programs, 50 beds for men in an addiction and rehabilitation program and 60 beds for men requiring specialized health care. The blueprint has a central dining facility and spaces for several day programs, including counselling, life skills training, housing supports and family services. There would also be an outdoor amenity space.
The building would be six storeys at its tallest point.
The existing Thrift Store on Montreal Road at Ste. Anne Street is the busiest Salvation Army Thrift Store in Ottawa. The organization plans to upgrade it during the redevelopment. A coffee shop where Salvation Army clients could work would also act as a discrete entrance to family services.
The development must be approved by city council because a shelter and residential care facility isn’t a permitted use on that part of Montreal Road. Allowing it would require amendments to the official plan, secondary plan and zoning bylaw.
The current Salvation Army Booth Centre
The Salvation Army has been at 171 George St. since 1963. The emergency shelter, although it’s just one of the programs, has always been part of the organization’s core services.
The Salvation Army says the building has undergone countless renovations over the past 54 years. The organization considered staying there but concluded the footprint of the building is too small for any expanded services. On top of that, there’s nowhere for clients to be outside, other than the sidewalk.
“It’s not good for them. I’m sure they often feel like animals in a zoo where people drive by and stare at them. It’s not good for the neighbours, either. It’s not good for anybody,” Provost said.
Provost said the Salvation Army’s clients are from all walks of life.
A “fair number” of people have addictions issues and many have been through some kind of abuse in their lives, Provost said.
The residential programs focus on men, but there are elderly women, single parents, families and young parents who use day programs. There are people who are on tight budgets, people who have seen splits in their families and people who are going through divorces. Many have mental health problems.
“We deal with real life,” Provost said. “That’s the people who live in Ottawa.”
The George Street building would be sold once the Montreal Road facility opens.
The Salvation Army’s case for Vanier
The Concorde Motel on Montreal Road is the only property that the Salvation Army believes is suitable for its growing operations.
The design is flexible enough to repurpose entire wings, if needed, according to the organization.
That’s to say, the building can move away from principally being a shelter.
The emergency shelter component is the big sticking point for opponents who argue that the shelter model is out of date and doesn’t conform to a widely accepted “housing first” approach.
(The Concorde Motel supplies rooms as overflow emergency shelters, one of 14 motels and hotels under contract with the city to provide shelter services. The city has paid the Concorde Motel more than $2 million for shelter services since 2012).
Provost said the Salvation Army has had a “housing first team” since 2008, even before the 2014 endorsement by the city of the housing first strategy.
“Everything we do is focused on people being housed, being stably housed and remaining housed. Every program is geared toward that,” Provost said.
Over the past year the housing first team has housed about 100 people, Provost said.
“We’re looking forward to a future where we’ll have less and less residential emergency shelter beds and more and more of the support aspect,” he said.
Provost said the Salvation Army expected opposition to its proposal, but he believes there are more people who support it.
“They’re just being a lot quieter about it for a number of reasons,” Provost said. “We as a society tend to pay a lot of attention to the loud ones, but they’re not necessarily that large of a group and they’re not necessarily reflective of the majority.”
Provost remembered there was a similar reaction to the Salvation Army opening a transitional home on Gladstone Avenue next to a school. Now neighbours are participating in community events with the clients, Provost said.
“I think this is what will happen here, too,” Provost said of Montreal Road.
“People agree it’s necessary. It’s probably a misunderstanding as to what it really is. It’s a bit judgmental, to some degree. They don’t want to be mean. They don’t intend to be mean. It’s human nature I think, to some extent. People are generous, too.”
The Salvation Army has been pressed to defend why it needs to have a shelter and health services complex together on the same site.
If agencies refer people to different services across the city, they simply won’t go, Provost said, emphasizing the importance of “warm transfers” between programs, rather than sending clients somewhere else. The proposed site at 333 Montreal Rd. is within a 30-minute walk from other services that the Salvation Army might not offer, Provost said.
The shelter will have better conditions for men who immediately need a place to stay.
At the George Street facility, there are 12 men in a room with bunk beds. In the new site, the maximum in a room will be six men with no bunk beds. There will be more privacy, and that, Provost said, gives the men more dignity and confidence. Environment matters, he said.
The Salvation Army admits it did a bad job of sharing its intentions with the community earlier in the planning process.
“We could have done things better, we could have done things differently,” said Glenn van Gulik, the Salvation Army’s area public relations director.
“This is landscape we’re not familiar with. We’re not developers. We don’t put up buildings every day or every week or every month or every year.”
Since filing the development plan, the Salvation Army has been trying to meet with residents and businesses. It held a daylong public consultation.
Ottawa police have been clear that the Salvation Army needs to be responsible for the area around the facility and not just its property, van Gulik said.
That has convinced the Salvation Army to consider launching an ambassador program to, if necessary, watch for neighbourhood issues and clean local parks.
The Salvation Army argues that its Vanier health complex would mean more spending in the community, with staff buying items at stores and going out for meals.
“I’m sure they’ll want to eat at Finnegan’s Pub on occasion,” van Gulik said.
S.O.S. Vanier emerges as chief opponent
There are several groups in the central-east area that oppose the Salvation Army’s plan for Vanier, including the Vanier Community Association, Overbrook Community Association and the Quartier Vanier BIA, but an upstart collective of residents has been the most vocal.
S.O.S. Vanier — a nod to the S.O.S. Montfort movement that saved the Montfort Hospital in the 1990s — has established itself as the most vocal naysayer. S.O.S. Vanier’s founder is Drew Dobson, owner of Finnegan’s Pub, which is a stone’s throw from the proposed site for the Salvation Army complex. He said he would be happier to keep the Concorde Motel on the commercial strip than have the Salvation Army build its shelter there.
Ideally, Dobson would like to see a mixed-use development with some offices or stores, perhaps some condos, and possibly some of the non-shelter services the Salvation Army offers.
“We’re not proposing this be built in anyone’s backyard,” Dobson said. “We think the model is inconsistent with modern practices and we don’t think it should be built anywhere. It’s an institution.”
For several years there have been efforts by the city and community to transform Vanier, focusing on ridding the area of prostitution and drugs.
There are plans to improve the streetscape, too. Montreal Road is slated for a complete overhaul.
As part of the city’s draft 2018 budget, and perhaps not coincidentally considering the shelter controversy, Montreal Road is eyed as the next candidate for a community improvement program, which offers grants to developers as a way to generate economic activity.
“It’s a disadvantaged community,” Dobson said. “We believe bringing a shelter this size into a disadvantaged community will set it back further.”
Where the Salvation Army’s economic impact study suggests the health complex will be a boon to commerce in Vanier, opponents laughed it off as presenting only part of the picture. Dobson called the study “garbage,” criticizing the analysis for considering other developments that aren’t even in Vanier and making bad guesses at how many more jobs would be created.
Opponents of the Salvation Army’s proposal also criticize the need for an emergency shelter.
Randal Bartlett, a Vanier resident and economist, looked at the Salvation Army’s proposal from a housing and fiscal point of view. He helped organize a housing symposium promoting the importance of the housing first model. Bartlett said symposium organizers couldn’t find anyone to speak in support of the Salvation Army’s model.
Using property tax money to fund shelter beds is a pointless way of trying to solve the homelessness issue, Bartlett said.
Bartlett said the Salvation Army is only picking up its George Street operation and plopping it in Vanier.
“It’s equivalent to putting lipstick on a pig. That’s really all that’s changing here,” Bartlett said.
The politics
Politically, Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu Fleury is in the least enviable position.
He represents both the ByWard Market and the area of Vanier where the Salvation Army wants to relocate. Fleury doesn’t like what the Salvation Army is proposing, and although he lauds the organization for wanting to spend $50 million in Ottawa, he’s against the idea of allowing a change in land-use rules to locate a large shelter on Vanier’s main street.
Underpinning his position are the years of work by the city to revitalize Vanier.
The greatest obstacle for opponents has been Mayor Jim Watson’s early support for the Salvation Army’s plan, just after city hall received the development application last June.
A mayoral stamp of approval almost certainly influences the positions of councillors who don’t necessarily have anything at stake in the decision.
Watson and Fleury have been interested in improving the Salvation Army’s operations in the ByWard Market, but now the politicians are at odds over the organization’s plan to move out of the tourist area.
Ottawa-Vanier MP Mona Fortier wrote to councillors on Friday asking them to reject the Salvation Army’s development application.
A land-use planning problem vs. the future of social services
The debate is framed as a land-use planning exercise.
Potentially lost at planning committee this week is the big-picture discussion about how governments fund external agencies and programs to reduce homelessness.
The city has ruled out a joint meeting of the planning committee and the community and protective services committee to assess the Salvation Army’s application.
Even if council approves the planning amendments, there’s a good chance the Salvation Army will end up at the Ontario Municipal Board in an appeal. S.O.S. Vanier is raising money for an OMB fight.
A larger debate will probably happen over the funding of shelters, but likely not until after the next municipal election in October 2018.
According to van Gulik, there’s suspected soil contamination at 333 Montreal Rd. that will require cleanup, costing about $750,000. The city has a rebate program to help developers with “brownfield” remediation costs, but van Gulik said it’s too early to say if the Salvation Army would apply.
However, the organization could one day ask the city for more grant money to operate a new, larger facility.
“It’s not impossible,” Provost said.
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