OPTIONS BYTOWN
ANNUAL REPORT
2020-2021
Message from the President
Dear Friends:
I am writing this message in July of 2021. For 16 months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has been under various states of caution, restriction, stay-at-home, and lock-down. We stay inside, we keep our distance, we forgo interpersonal connection, and many of the services that we once took for granted have become unavailable. To say that it has been an unusual year would be an understatement – the global pandemic has changed our lives.
Options Bytown serves a community that has been cruelly and unfairly affected by COVID-19. This past year, our services have touched people whose lack of stable housing, experience of poverty, and isolation from friends, family, and supports have made life in the pandemic all the more challenging. I could not be more proud of the work Options Bytown has done – reaching out fearlessly and with compassion to keep our tenants and clients safe and healthy.
This year, we have seen the importance of the service we provide. The homes and community connections we offer to our tenants have allowed them to stay safe and supported during the pandemic. We have also seen the importance of the broad network of supports and services that knit together across the Ottawa homelessness and housing community. In addition to being proud of the work that Options had done to maintain direct service to our clients, I have been inspired to see the team extend its reach – coordinating across organizations, connecting clients with essential services, raising funds (we DOUBLED our donation revenues this year), and building innovative partnerships.
I am looking forward to the coming year, and to ever more initiatives in support of the community. I am proud to say that this year, Options embarked upon the development of a Reconciliation Action Plan. We know that Indigenous people make up a disproportionate share of Ottawa’s homeless population. Once complete, this plan will guide Options Bytown’s relationships with Indigenous Peoples, inform our service offerings, and make concrete our commitment to reconciliation.
It is such a privilege to be part of the Options Bytown community. I am continually inspired by the commitment of our staff and my fellow Board members, as well as by the spirit, stories, humour, and wisdom of our tenants. Collectively, you all inform my efforts to learn, expand my perspective, think a little deeper, and do a little better.
Annie.
Message from the Executive Director
Hello friends,
This year, my ED message is dedicated to the staff of Options Bytown. Since March 2020, I have watched in awe as this incredible group of people showed up every day under exceptionally difficult and ever changing circumstances to provide support, reassurance, and comfort to the people in our Options Bytown community.
Ending and preventing homelessness is at the forefront of our work here at Options Bytown. But in the background, so much more is taking place, this year more than ever!
Staff were endlessly creative in finding ways to connect with people and to make sure no one was left alone during a time when isolation was at all-time high. Checking in with people via phone and door knocking, slipping notes under apartment doors as reminders that we’re here to help, installing mailboxes on the doors of our resource centres so people could leave messages for staff, checking in on people living on the streets and in encampments, and staying present and visible in all of our programs are some of the ways staff made sure we stayed connected.
The phrase we have heard more than any others this past year has been “Stay Home”. For so many of the people we work with, there is no home to stay in, highlighting one of the many disproportionate effects this pandemic has had on many people in our community. Yet in spite of the many challenges brought on by both the pandemic and the housing and homelessness crisis, our staff continued to help people secure housing, move into apartments, purchase and set up furniture, and get settled into their housing communities.
These are just some of the many examples of the incredible work that has been done this past year. And what is most remarkable is that our staff did all of this in the face of their own fears and anxieties brought on by living through a pandemic.
I am immensely proud of the people that make up this organization and look forward to continuing to work alongside them and all of you to continue to prevent and end homelessness in our community,
Catharine
COMMUNITY VS COVID
Combating social isolation has been a key priority of Options Bytown staff over the last year. When the pandemic first hit, the spirit of showing up to get it done took hold all across our programming, with staff working diligently to help tenants secure PPE, connect with food banks and other supports, and get access to the technology they needed not only to access resources but also to stay in touch with loved ones during the province-wide lockdown.
While many traditional social programs were forced to pause due to public health guidelines, staff prioritized programming that would allow tenants to access food support, especially around holidays like Christmas and Eid.
Resource Centre staff distribute Iftar meals to tenants breaking their fasts during Ramadan.
As the long winter thawed, this work shifted. Where before our staff had worked to keep tenants connected to the outside world, they now focused their attention on making it safe for tenants to go back out into it. Throughout April our staff partnered with Ottawa Inner City Health and other partner agencies to bring vaccine clinics to tenants. At our Gilmour and Cumberland buildings, tenants were able to get their doses without even leaving the building, with clinics taking place in lounges and offices.
Meanwhile, in some of our other locations in Ottawa Community Housing buildings, the vaccine was even closer to home. Through the “airport model”, tenants were able to step out of their front door and into a mobile clinic. Two teams slowly made their way through the building – the first made up of housing workers who helped tenants fill out the relevant paperwork and ensure they were informed about the potential side effects of the vaccine. Once this was done, nurses followed to administer doses and monitor tenants during the waiting period. This combination of approaches means that as of the end of June, over 95% of staff and close to 75% of supportive housing tenants are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
FINANCIAL OVERVIEW
In 2020, Options Bytown recorded revenues of $3,195,920 and expenses of $3,087,631. This resulted in a modest surplus of $38,289, which will be set aside for future growth opportunities or in case of emergency need.
2021 also marked a shift in the Options Bytown fiscal year – which has changed to April-March from January-December. The revenues and expenses of the three-month transitional period (January-March 2021) will be included in the 2022 Annual Report alongside the full FY2021 financial overview.
The majority of revenue flowed to Options Bytown through a variety of funding programs administered by the City of Ottawa, including the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative, Reaching Home, Home for Good, and Supports to Social Housing. Our community partners including Recovery Care, Ottawa Community Housing, and the CCOC also contributed significant amounts. Revenue collected from charitable donations almost doubled in 2021, from $34,399 to $62,109.
TENANT STORIES
Beating the Heat
The generosity of our donors was key in allowing us to raise the quality of life for our tenants this past year. June and July of 2020 were exceptionally hot, with heatwaves gripping the city for most of the summer. Our buildings are not air conditioned, but usually our tenants are able to cool off in public spaces like libraries or malls, but COVID-19 safety protocols took this option off the table. Staff at our supportive housing buildings and our resource centres saw the health risk posed by this heat, and we asked you, our community, to help our tenants cool down – and you did. Thanks to your gifts, we were able to provide A/C units to many tenants who needed them.
In March of 2020 when the first lockdown began, Options Bytown staff used these notes to safely connect with tenants and remind them that even though we were physically distant, they still had a community supporting them.
Creativity at Cumberland
When new tenants walk through the doors at one of our properties, we want them to feel at home, and a big part of that is working to make our buildings feel comfortable and inviting. In 2017, a group of tenants living in our community at 380 Cumberland wanted to be able to share their creativity with the rest of the building and the public. With that, the tenant art gallery was born in the Housing Support Office!
The art gallery is managed by tenants who use it to display and sell art, jewelry, or other crafts. This does so much to make the office feel more like an extension of the community. The gallery is open to tenants and to the public, and we hope sometime soon you’re able to stop by and see it for yourself. Because current circumstances make that impossible, we wanted to give you a taste of the gallery through the photos below!
Tenant Satisfaction
Our tenants are at the centre of everything we do, and every year we ask them to complete a survey to help us understand how we’re doing. Here’s what our tenants have to say:
92%
of our tenants are satisfied with the services provided by Options Bytown overall.
85%
of our tenants say the Housing Worker made an extremely or very positive difference in their lives.
89%
of our tenants were satisfied with our response to the COVID 19 pandemic.
“The team is amazing – very resourceful for my mental needs – helping out as support in crisis.”
“Just thank you. You help a lot.”
“Thanking you and everyone from Bytown for all your assistance, guidance, consideration, and being there beyond the call of your duty.”
Spotlight: Resource Centres & Recovery Care
While Options Bytown might be most visible at our large apartment buildings on Cumberland or Gilmour, our teams are hard at work all across the city to provide housing support in a wide variety of contexts, and those with perhaps the most diverse approach to that goal are the Resource Centre team.
Supervised by Hany Ibrahim, the Manager of Community Development and Homelessness Prevention, this team is made up of 11 staff – one Resource Centre Service Specialist, nine Housing and Community Support Workers, and one Peer Support Worker.
These staff work alongside partner organizations like Ottawa Community Housing to provide clients with access to supports and resources as well as to foster a sense of community. For Hany, this is the most important part of their work – helping tenants break down the fear of the unknown that comes with living in a large apartment building so that they instead feel like they are part of a safe and supportive community.
This year, Hany’s team expanded to include two Housing Support Workers embedded within the Recovery Care Safer Supply Ottawa program. Many of those who regularly access safer supply programs are homeless or dealing with housing instability, and so a partnership with Options Bytown was formed as a way to give them the support they need to access housing. However, it quickly became clear that this process was far more complex than initially imagined.
“Transitioning to permanent housing from homelessness is far more complicated than people often assume,” Hany said, “and when this partnership began it quickly became clear that the Housing Support role was not just about securing housing for our clients”. For example, Hany explained, government ID is needed to rent property, which many who are homeless do not have, and going through the process of getting a health card or birth certificate is complex and bureaucratic. “What was initially just a housing support program ended up being far more comprehensive, and we’re always working with the clinical staff and counsellors on site to evolve and respond to the needs of the people we serve”.
Initially conceived as a six-month pilot project at the Rideau Street Recovery Care site, the partnership has been extended to March 2023 and expanded to also include a second site in Vanier. By providing multiple services under the same roof, this program breaks down barriers to access and makes it easier for people to access the support they need.
The entire Resource Centre team has had to get creative this year in how to best support their clients, but it’s clear they’ve made an impact: The number of new people reached has increased by 56% this year, and the total number of times our services were accessed increased from 13,000 in 2019 to over 20,000 in 2020. Hany said her staff’s commitment to a community development framework is what makes all of this possible: “I get to support them, but they deserve all the kudos in the world”.
Thank you to our partners!
The work we do would not be possible without a community of donors, supporters, and partners who share our belief that everyone deserves a home.
From everyone at Options Bytown, thank you for all that you do.
Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa
Bruyère
Canadian Mental Health Association Ottawa
Carleton University
Carty House
Catholic Family Services
Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation
Centretown Community Health Centre
City of Ottawa
Community Veterinary Outreach
Cornerstone Housing for Women
Crime Prevention Ottawa
Deloitte
Entraide budgetaire Ottawa
Food for Thought
Heartwood House
Lowertown Community Resource Centre
MASC Ottawa
Operation Ramzieh
Ottawa Community Housing
Ottawa Food Bank
Ottawa Humane Society
Ottawa Inner City Health
Ottawa Little Theatre
Ottawa Mission
Ottawa Public Health
Ottawa Social Housing Regsistry
Regionex
Respect Rx
Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre
Royal Ottawa Psychiatric Outreach Team
Salvation Army
Shepherds of Good Hope
Shield Security
Somerset West Community Health Centre
South Eastern Ottawa Community Health Centre
Supportive Housing Network Ottawa
University of Ottawa
Our donors and volunteers
The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every aspect of the work we do at Options Bytown, and that impact can be seen in everything from how our staff adapted to be able to support our tenants to the way our community rallied around them.
As we look ahead to the rest of 2021, we are buoyed by rising vaccine numbers and falling case counts. We hope to be able to bring our community together again in person some day soon.