Good Afternoon Councillors,
Thank you for your time today.
My name is Kaite Burkholder Harris, and I’m the Executive Director of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Ottawa. The Alliance is a member-based non-profit organization representing over 55 agencies and individuals in Ottawa that work with people who are homeless and at risk of homelessness. We are dedicated to the city-wide prevention and end of homelessness through public education, advocacy, and system planning.
This City Council is the first in Canada to acknowledge the housing and homelessness emergency that faces constituents in our city and we commend Councillors for this decision. We have a waitlist of 12,000 households who need affordable housing and wait times that range between 5 and 19 years.
Homelessness is a policy choice that was made over 30 years ago due to federal de-investment in affordable housing. While we are glad to see commitment once again to building new affordable housing, we are treading water to try and keep up as we lose more affordable housing than is being built. In five years, we lost almost 8,000 affordable units while only 1,000 new affordable units were added in Ottawa. Simply put, we are losing ground.
City Council is being asked to vote on an LRT extension that would mean demolishing 120 residential townhomes and de-housing hundreds of tenants to make way for the future Knoxdale LRT station. We understand the intention to offer affordable housing to the hundreds of residents who would be displaced, but there are no specifications on how this would be achieved. Without more clear information on what this would mean, and how it can be guaranteed to the tenants of Manor Village, this decision should not be made today.
We hear the City’s concern that the LRT will be louder and more expensive if the tracks need to be turned. I want to remind this committee that homelessness is also expensive and increasingly so. We are currently spending $3000/ month per family in a hotel due to a lack of shelter space, and the numbers continue to rise. As well, there are spinoff costs including higher use of emergency services and a loss of stability for families that create cycles of poverty which become increasingly difficult to escape.
Ottawa is already home to the largest mass eviction in Canada - with the Herongate evictions. It is further proof that homelessness is created by policy and planning decisions that fail to consider the long-term consequences to families and communities. It is in this context that the Alliance strongly urges this committee not to pass any Stage 3 LRT option that de-houses communities. We can end homelessness in Ottawa, as is happening in other communities across Canada. However, we must make decisions with the long-term vision of the kind of city we want.
By: Karen Umurerwa, Expert Steering Team Member
Housing and Mental Health in Black Communities
In 2012, my family made the hard decision to move from Rwanda to Canada. The transition from my homeland to Canada was the toughest process I could have gone through. Canada was a land of opportunities, but it was one that was completely foreign to us as we had no friends or family that could ease our integration.
By: Yetunde Amanda Ona
Embracing Identity: The Bonds of the African Diaspora
The following piece was written by Yetunde Amanda Ona who arrived in Canada 6 years ago with her young children as a refugee claimant. She navigated the homelessness system, and is now an Alliance staff member working to create a more effective and dignified housing and homelessness system. These are her reflections on identity and the African Diaspora.
By: Gail Gallagher
National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women (Dec. 6th)
On this day, we remember the innocent lives lost and of the murder of 14 young women at Polytechnique Montréal on December 6, 1989. As a result of this tragic event, December 6 was designated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
In addition, the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence begins on November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) and ends on December 10 with International Human Rights Day. The 16 Days of Activism are an opportunity to come together to speak out and renew our commitment to end gender-based violence.
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