The Death of #SaveTheWesleyDayCentre

On an as-yet-unannounced day next month, i.e. in February 2020, the Wesley Day Centre will close its doors for the final time.

"But, but!" you exclaim. "Didn't this chch.com/ article assert the Wesley Day Centre has found a new home? Indeed it did. 

"And back in July, did not Council approve funding to keep the Wesley Day Centre open until another site could be found, so that the wealth of services it offers could be housed in the same building as the new second CTS for Hamilton?" That is what we were told then.

Without any fanfare, this article quietly stated the Day Centre was not going to stay open until March 31, as we were originally told was its lease expiry date. Instead, 'the centre will close earlier than that to clean up the space and allow clients to transition to other services'. 

"We are working with the city on a contingency plan and we hope to announce details in December." (Andrea Buttars, manager of resource development for Wesley Urban Ministries)

That said, while 'Wesley Urban Ministries' plan has been to move the social-service agency's meal program to Vanier Towers, a CityHousing highrise complex at Hess and Jackson streets' (more about Vanier Towers in a separate blog to come), 'Michelle Baird, a director in the city's public health department, says the hope is the remaining services can still be offered elsewhere. "Ideally, from the point of view of the client, we would want those operating together. It makes sense." '

So, we're all good, right? 

Wrong.

On January 8, having heard nothing since the December ECS meeting wherein we were assured by Paul Johnson, GM of Healthy and Safe Communities for the City, that a site had been secured for the CTS and the Wesley Day Centre services, I wrote a long letter to the Emergency and Community Services Committee councillors and Paul Johnson asking for an update.

Paul wrote back very quickly with a lot of detail. While he could not yet tell me the location of the CTS site, he assured me we were only days aware from the City submitting its application to the province for the new CTS and making public the location of the site.

However, he added this: 'One point of clarification (although it could be the way I read your email)…we are not looking for a new site for Wesley Centre AND a CTS site. As our report last year indicated we funded the continuation of Wesley Centre through the winter until the end of their lease. We are also working with Wesley to determine which of the services currently at Wesley Centre would integrate well with our CTS. As we noted we do not see all of the services of Wesley Centre operating out of the CTS but some of the critical services related to housing, income security, additional health services through public health and the shelter health network will be integrated wherever possible.'

In other words, eating is not important. If you've never really been hungry, it doesn't seem that critical, does it? An afterthought after an afterthought. "I don't need to go to the grocery store. I have plenty of food at home."

Showers, especially for homeless and insecurely housed women? I can assure you they are not easily found in Hamilton. 

Free laundry services? Also very difficult to find.

Podiatrist? Believe me, proper foot care is essential for those who spend countless hours in the cold. This is not an optional extra.

What we advocates for the Day Centre have said over and over again is this:

The reason the Wesley Day Centre is a unique and necessary resource centre within Hamilton is that all of the services are hosted under one roof.

When you start cherry-picking and saying you are going to keep this service but not that, housing services but not a cafeteria, health clinic but not showers, addiction services but not laundry services, you are telling us that the Wesley Day Centre will die in February.

I will continue to blog daily in honour of the Wesley Day Centre, as there is much history to commemorate before its upcoming demise.

Watch this space. In the meantime please enjoy this song about another beloved place which closed elsewhere. Different place, different context, same feeling.

The Deep Dark Woods: Charlie's (Is Comin' Down)