Rezoned

Tonight I went to my first City Council meeting. I was there because the Salvation Army Community Centre is opening an emergency shelter for up to 45 women & children when they are in crisis. The property we were looking at is in Pleasant Hill and we needed to have the lot rezoned so we could run a hostel/shelter on it. It’s been a long process and we have been working on it for 18 months already.

The process started with an idea of our old Executive Director but the property didn’t work out. One night after working a shift on the Emergency After Hours desk, I dealt with a homeless women suffering from hypothermia living under a bridge and was really bothered by it. We kind of took some ownership of the idea and we started working as a management team getting the Salvation Army’s approval for the project. At the same time our EAH desk just got a lot busier. A combination of higher rent, people coming in from out of town, increased domestic violence, and more people with mental health issues all played a factor. What was a job that was only busy on weekends was busy all of the time. A couple of years ago hotels were falling over themselves for the Centre’s business were now shutting their doors to us as they upgraded and no longer wanted homeless clients (to their defense, some of them can be difficult). We had to do something and that something in the Salvation Army starts with a Program Proposal. It sounds innocent enough until you see what it entails. Even now I speak of the phrase reverently. I am tempted to just call it a Prgm Prpsl without any vowels lest I offend it or make it angry. It’s one tough process and the best way to describe that process was totally and completely exhaustive. I actually had nightmares that featured it and that was just the filling out the forms part. The Salvation Army doesn’t enter into these kind of projects lightly and there is a rigorous process with a lot of feedback. Feedback means revising said Program Proposal. While they supported the idea, we couldn’t get the project to break even. We would have all sorts of discussions with Social Services and they supported the idea but they couldn’t give us the money we needed until the Pringle-Merriman report came out. That was frustrating because we were stuck and going no where. In the whole scheme of things it didn’t really delay us that much but while it was happening, it seemed like a big deal. We anticipated the worse and we kept working at different business plans but none met the standards of the Army and for all intents and purposes, the project was dead.

In the spring of 2008, we got a call to go to the Cabinet Office in downtown Saskatoon. The Minister of Social Services Hon. Donna Harpauer made a funding announcement that increased shelter rates dramatically. Half way through her talk I wanted to go up and give her a high five as we knew the numbers would make sense. Bob Pringle was there and I remember saying “thanks” to him as we left and he was asking if we would be able to go ahead. I said “most definitely”. The funny thing is that we were so happy and we did some media interviews on the way out but nothing was aired because we weren’t negative towards the government.

Back at the office we started again on the program proposal and after submitting about another ten versions of it, it was approved by the Division. It went to the Territorial Headquarters where it underwent more questioning. In the end, there was 19 different versions done up. Even now my left eye twitches when thinking about it. It was so much work but I learned a whole lot about projects during that process and I really appreciate how hard it was and how hard they made us work for it because in the end, it made the next steps a lot easier. If I was a denominational executive, I would call up my nearest counterpart in the Salvation Army and ask them a lot of questions about their process for approving new programs. It made us think through and talk through issues that would never have come up. Another thing I appreciate was that we had to work out a break even point financially. That made me put a number to the women and children we would be housing and once we did that, it becomes really hard to stop.

Then we had to get the money from the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. That wasn’t going to be a problem but Stephen Harper decided to drop the writ. Luckily the Hon. Monte Solberg wasn’t running for re-election and instead of being out of the hustlings, he was apparently signing funding agreements back in Ottawa and we got our funding without having to wait for a new cabinet minister to be named or if the Conservatives lost, the project could be cancelled.

Finding the money wasn’t any small task either as the staff members at Service Canada lived up to their name. It was the end of a funding cycle and most of the money had already been spent. They looked high and low for money for us and if they told me that they dumped over the couch in the Minister’s office looking for spare change, I would believe them.

Their application process wasn’t as tough as the Salvation Army’s and because we had done so much work to get the Army to sign off on it, it only took a couple of days and by December, we had a funding announcement for the project.

Earlier in 2008, we thought we had a property down the street from but the first real estate agent we worked with actually bought the property while saying he was representing us. That set us back months and hurt personally as the realtor was a personal friend of mine. We then went to Larry Gingerich who in addition to handling most of the Salvation Army’s deals in the city, is the dad of my friend Mike. Larry was a lot of fun to work with as a realtor although we probably spent too much time working together because as we were looking for a shelter for homeless women, there was a housing boom going on which made the process a lot harder. All of the managers in the Centre became amateur real estate agents looking online, driving around looking for properties, and reading the real estate paper that comes in the Star Phoenix every Friday. Our Executive Director did so much work on it, I bet she still reads the real estate section out of habit. Someone would find a property and either we, the architect, or the city would find fault with it. This went on for months although we did get some fun suggestions out of it like foam domes and I liked portable shepherd huts (you wouldn’t need zoning permission, just change to park it in front of a meter). Finally we found a property on 341 Avenue T South that met all of our needs, our architect liked it, the city planners liked it and we could afford it.

Then we started the rezoning process. It’s a long process. Forms have to be submitted, plans have to be drawn up, things have to be put in tubes with stickers on it, and they have to be passed around City Hall and it takes a long time. Fortunately our architect knows a lot more about this than we do and took it over. Ken Wilson did a great job of steering us through this, explaining it to us, and in his spare time did some excellent drawings up for the new shelter. The rezoning had to go to public meetings, committee meetings, and letters get written suggesting you need to replace the water main for a block. Engineering firms have to be contacted which refute letters suggesting you need to replace part of the water main on Avenue T from 19th Street and finally you get to a city council vote.

While I knew we had the votes and it was likely to be unanimous, I had butterflies in my stomach while it was being discussed. Councilor Pat Lorje got up to speak for the shelter and said some quite gracious words about it which made me feel better but when the vote came down as unanimous, it was like a weight off my back.

The re-zoning process bothered me a lot. On one hand I understand the need for process. On the other hand hotels don’t like to take homeless women and children so what are the options available? Housing them in men’s shelter’s is a disaster waiting to happen and we didn’t have the room even if we wanted to do it. While it never happened that we had to turn away a homeless women and child, there were several times when the shelters were full, the hotels were full (or would not take them) and we had to come up with very creative solutions. It was a stressful fall and winter for both us and Social Services. I know that isn’t the City’s responsibility but I wish we could have had a better way of coming up with temporary solutions. Then again, maybe this is part of the process where we learn as a city how to handle an economic boom.

Now the boss and our architect get to concentrate on building permits, while I get to start planning out a staff to work over at the shelter. As Council wrapped up tonight, 45 women and children are one step closer to having a safe place to go in an emergency and that’s pretty cool.