Oakwood-Vaughan homeless shelter gets committee approval

If passed at council, Cornerstone and its 50 beds for men will be reborn on a half-vacant commercial strip area residents describe as a magnet for drugs, prostitution and gang activity.

Should council not say yes, Cornerstone’s deal with the owner of 616 Vaughan – formerly the notorious Town Talk bar – will fall through, effectively shutting the shelter down until next year at least.

"A delay in this case really means death," said Rev. Patrick Reid, Cornerstone’s executive director and pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Tabernacle, which ran the shelter at its St. Clair Avenue West church before closing it last month as part of a real estate deal.

Reid said the seller is not going to wait until January, when the new city council arrives, and the beds will be lost during the winter.

Eglinton-Lawrence Josh Colle, the councillor who represents the Oakwood Village neighbourhood around the intersection, called 616 Vaughan "the king of chronic bad locations" and had urged members of the Community Development and Recreation Committee to defer the sale.

He proposed the city ask the building’s owner to extend an Aug. 29 deadline for the deal, but also investigate the use of 524 Oakwood, a city-owned former health clinic, as a temporary Cornerstone location.

You might be interested in

{{type}}

{{title}}

• Dec 31, 1969
• Comments

{{type}}

{{title}}

• Dec 31, 1969
• Comments

St. Paul’s Councillor Josh Matlow, who called the city’s consultation process in the neighbourhood "completely deplorable" and "dismissive of people with valid concerns," was the only committee member who supported Colle’s position.

"I expected as much of this committee," Colle said afterwards, adding he was more hopeful about getting the sale deferred at council.

Other councillors said the city, above all, must maintain its stock of shelter beds or risk deaths on the streets in winter.

They reminded their colleagues neutral criteria, which Cornerstone apparently meets with 616 Vaughan, have been agreed on to settle the difficult question of where to place shelters in Toronto.

"Council gave us some very clear direction and we all supported it," said Kristyn Wong-Tam, whose downtown ward has the most shelter beds.

"I don’t think we have anything to fear (in the relocation) and if there was, I would say no to it," added Joe Mihevc, who proposed that the city report by March on an "Oakwood Vaughan Strategy" to improve economic development, social services, and land use on the troubled commercial strip.

Many spoke Thursday to voice arguments against the shelter proposal, which they heard for the first time on July 28 when more than 300 met at a community meeting.

Colle blamed the city’s bureaucrats for starting their community outreach on the project too late, despite warnings from his office.

"We failed dramatically to make this work," he said.

Vaughan and Oakwood is "one of the most derelict and desolate corners in this city," said Anna Sottile, a local business owner, adding the biggest industry in that part of her fragile neighbourhood "is booze and drugs."

While the city has spent millions revitalizing St. Clair West, the Oakwood Village community "is a different world" which saw none of that, she said.

Josef Soeherman, a realtor whose family has owned 616 Vaughan for decades, said at least one prospective bar or nightclub owner is "ready to put an offer on the table" should the Cornerstone sale fall through.

Andrew Ross, chairperson of the Oakwood Village Community Association, said the community, "just barely keeping its head above water" after years of having its pleas for more social services fall on deaf ears, doesn’t deserve the shelter.

He said the proposed Cornerstone relocation was like a newly-gentrified St. Clair "shoving its load" on a more disadvantaged neighbourhood.

The former clinic at 542 Oakwood is at least on a less-residential street, so it could be a temporary location, Ross said.

Despite warnings of how moving the shelter to 616 Vaughan could haunt the city, councillors such as Toronto-Danforth’s Paula Fletcher suggested it could be the start of the area getting things – a community centre, addiction counseling, more businesses – residents said they want.

After one woman said homelessness is "much too difficult to explain" to her children, Susan Sneyd, another parent who lives two blocks away from 616 Vaughan said she’s willing to try. "I want my children to understand difference and to learn how to be compassionate," said Sneyd, adding she "was stunned by the level of fear" at the July 28 meeting.

Sneyd also said she’d rather have a shelter run so well on St. Clair most residents were not aware of it, than another bar on the property.

Glenn Kirby, a volunteer with Cornerstone, predicted its move to Vaughan Road "will be a blessing in disguise."

"All of us were born hungry," and the homeless men are decent human beings "stuck in a situation," he said.

Beverley Hamlet, its administrative assistant, said Cornerstone screens out any unsuitable men, and tells clients of their responsibilities, including a no-loitering policy for the neighbourhood.

Staff patrol and find out if anyone is panhandling, she said. "We don’t stand for loitering or disturbances in our community."

Though the new location is two kilometers away from the former church space on St. Clair, it wouldn’t be too far for clients used to reaching services such as Wychwood Open Doors or the public library during the day, Hamlet said, and some shelter clients work or volunteer. "They’re not wanderers."