We need a homeless shelter, city councillor says

BELLEVILLE– Participants at this year’s Sleep Out! So Others Can Sleep In event hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association. The event raises awareness about the issue of local homelessness. Supporters slept in cardboard boxes overnight for 12 hours. Photo by Suzanne Coolen

By Alisa Howlett

BELLEVILLE – Although city council isn’t currently discussing building a homeless shelter in Belleville, it’s always in the back of one councillor’s mind.

Councillor Jodie Jenkins’s approach to tackling the issue of local homelessness differs from that of another councillor who strongly opposes a shelter.

“I still maintain that we do need a homeless shelter for men. We need a homeless shelter period,” Jenkins said.

Belleville doesn’t have an overnight men’s shelter, and Councillor Pat Culhane says she wants to keep it that way. Culhane told QNet News recently that homeless shelters stigmatize people in need and are a step in the wrong direction. She would rather adopt Calgary’s plan to end homelessness – a plan whose goal is to help people move to self-reliance and independence rather than relying on shelters.

In 2007 Jenkins, along with a few friends, started a three-month pilot-project homeless shelter. The shelter – which was located on the corner of Moira and Coleman Streets – was specifically for men. It was primarily funded by donations, but closed due to a lack of private funding.

Jenkins said he does not believe city council will tackle the issue of the lack of a shelter, nor should it.

“I don’t believe a homeless shelter should be supported by the government on any level,” Jenkins said. “We need something that is sustainable and doesn’t need to go back for a handout each time. Whether (the money comes from) municipal, federal, or provincial (governments), … they are expensive to maintain.”

Jenkins said he has researched other communities’ strategies to curb homelessness. He is particularly interested in an idea a Quebec community established: developing an organic garden in connection with a farmers’ market.

The garden is part of a solution for sustainable revenue for the shelter. The produce grown in the garden is sold at the local farmers’ market and put back into shelter funding.

“These individuals are homeless. They’re staying at the shelter but they have to get up at 6 a.m. and water the plants, take care of the plants, tend to different things, then they go down to the market,” he said. “You’re doing two things: you’re sustaining your operation because there is revenue flowing in (from the market) and you’re giving these individuals an opportunity to get back on their feet, to get that drive again to want to do something.”

Jenkins said it’s great that there are three transitional houses already established in Belleville by the Canadian Mental Health Association to help people in need. But he thinks a shelter is also necessary, he said.

“Everything is hand in hand. We need both.”

Even though the shelter project that Jenkins was a part of was short-lived, he said he learned from the mistakes and successes.

“I haven’t written off doing it (again). There’s a group of us that still talk about it. We’re always looking for different properties,” he said. “When the opportunity arises, I will move forward and open up a men’s shelter that won’t be affiliated with the government at all. It will be there to build relationships and help people.”

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