Published June 2024
As part of the 35th Mayors’ Dinner, workers in the field of employment counselling, settlement support, shelter and homelessness supports, and workers involved in climate change and environmental projects were invited to share their experiences, stories and perspectives.
We represent people who stand in courage every day as we welcome people who are refugees and immigrants to Canada.
My name is Susana Escamilla, who once called Mexico my home. You will hear from four of us who all work at The Working Centre. Our job title is Employment Counsellor. Every day we acknowledge and feel our own refugee or immigrant journey, while also standing as a gateway for hundreds of people who come to make Waterloo Region home, people who will become future pillars and community members in the place we all now call home.
My name is Narges Rastgoo, who once called Iran my home. In February, for example, as a community, we welcomed over 200 new refugees to our cities, some government sponsored, and many who claim asylum from across the world. These refugees are living with few resources in unstable housing, and working hard to adjust to the dramatic change in their lives.
When trauma rears its ugly head, we help people to find relevant counselling and supports, when language issues make things harder, we look for employers who have hired people who speak the same language, or we find allies in the workplace who will patiently support the cultural learning needed. Step by step, with determined hopefulness.
My name is Yevhennia Tutak, who once called Ukraine my home. We hear the personal stories and lived journey of dislocation, of war, as families are blown apart by bombs and war, of people who escape hardship in boats that land them on foreign shores with no status, no place, no welcome. And then, they somehow land in our community here, through policy decisions, through personal choices framed by desperation, and we expect them to find a job, find housing in this impenetrable housing market. Step by step, issue by issue, we unravel the settlement, employment, and qualifications challenges faced by people landing in Canada.
My name is Helen Ala Rashi, who once called Syria my home. And we weep – the stories we hear unlock the sadness we feel as we all have family members who are still living in the wars, the turmoil in each of these countries. I have children who are part Palestinian, who were born stateless and only became citizens when we came to Canada. What we hear in the newspaper as stories in other countries…. These are our family, our friends, our people.
The courage we live is to believe that our community here has the capacity to care for people, to welcome each person, to help their families to settle, to deeply live what it is to offer hospitality and welcome, in ways that mean we have to change how we understand “we”, how we show welcome as a community.
We represent people who stand in courage each day as we respond to homelessness.
My name is Shinjita Alam, and I have worked at University Avenue housing since we first started this housing four years ago. We stand up here tonight as representatives of the hundreds of people in our community who choose to work with people who are experiencing homelessness, standing in solidarity with those who are rapidly becoming the most unwanted in our community.
My name is Kajaw Jalal. I work at St. John’s Kitchen, witness to the many beautiful people who are facing the dislocation of homelessness, the devastation of a poison drug supply that claims people’s humanity, and the rejection people experience because of the desperation they face in their daily lives. Basic survival, the need to meet the driving force of a relentless addiction, these things take over people’s lives and increasingly create alienation and despair.
My name is Nick Okot, and I also work at St. John’s Kitchen. The homeless/at risk of homeless community we serve is around 3,000 people who are living truly precarious lives, with around 150 people living unsheltered – in encampments, in stairwells, couch surfing; a further 600 living in our various community shelters; 200 in temporary motels including families. Over 100 refugees live in our shelter system. How do we stand in compassion and love in the face of the high numbers of people, whose needs are very complex?
My name is Holly Schuknecht, and I work at King Street Shelter. We are seeing people in our shelters:
Who need comprehensive mental health supports – at least 40% in our shelters.
Who are seniors and people who are unwell that rely on being cared for by shelter workers just to meet their basic needs. This is around 20% of people in our shelters.
We are also seeing increased numbers of people who are physically and mentally addicted to a toxic drug supply that overtakes their lives. This is close to 90% in Working Centre supported shelters.
My name is Candace Pitvor and I work with the Specialized Outreach Services team, providing medical, addictions, mental health, and court based outreach services. People’s desperation is growing and can no longer be ignored as we see the growing divide between people who have a home, and people who do not.
Traditional models of support are no longer working as the challenges become more complex. We need more places that work with low-barrier harm reduction practices. Trauma, mental health and acquired brain injury lead to challenges with impulse control. Can we create spaces where people are not excluded when these challenges emerge; places where we love people for who they are?
We need spaces that prioritize housing and shelter, and we need to figure out how we can support people who have been pushed to the margins of society. We urgently need more mental health and addiction supports. Every day, we problem-solve and stand witness, welcome people into community, help people to see they are known, they are loved unconditionally, they are important.
Reflections on Responding to Ecological Change
My name is Kevin Thomason, I’m a local Entrepreneur and Environmentalist. A number of us are gathered up here tonight to represent ways we can individually and collectively respond to our climate crisis. We started this evening an Opening Blessing from Donna Dubie – we need to know, be part of, and be in good relationship with the land that sustains us. It has never been more important for us to pay attention – to be active and engaged, and make change happen.
I work with community groups that care deeply about sustainability and our environment, including upholding our unique Countryside Line concept (this boundary protects our rural lands from the pressures of urban and industrial sprawl, and requires constant vigilance). Our Environmentally Sensitive Landscapes also help to protect our greenspace and water.
We are fortunate that Waterloo Region has a visionary Official Plan, a shared voice that guides growth, development, and investment to 2051 creating complete, sustainable, walkable communities with a focus on housing choice, housing affordability, public transit including phases 2 and 3 of ION Light Rail, farmland protection, and environmental conservation. In an uncertain world, facing a climate crisis, our communities have continued their leadership to come together to endorse strong GreenHouse Gas reductions of 50% reductions by 2030 and 80% reductions by 2050.
Together we can raise our voices as we plan for the future – in rural areas where we must balance nature, farming, and groundwater recharge – and in urban neighbourhoods where we have to build the missing middle and increase intensification to create more housing, transit, and complete, walkable neighbourhoods. If we work together, our voices and efforts amplify – these policies are shaped by us, by the people we elect, and we can support these policies into action, and debate them within the life of our community.
My name is Patrick Gilbride, and I am the new Executive Director of Reep Green Solutions in our 25th year of helping people to live sustainably. We support people to take action: to improve their homes’ energy and water efficiency; to reduce their waste; to plant a tree! Every time we choose nature in our front and back yards, we are choosing a hopeful future. These changes are important and all add up to collective impact. More importantly, they are indicative of a shift to make sustainability a part of our everyday. It takes commitment by homeowners and our entire community to make this happen. This is the path of regenerative thinking that is so important to our and our childrens’ future.
My name is Tova Davidson of Sustainable Waterloo Region, a social enterprise non-profit committed to a better future through community and organizational level environmental sustainability. We have supported more than 150 organizations and businesses to set targets and reduce greenhouse gasses, waste and/or water footprints, and to implement the UN SDGs. We envisioned and worked with regional partners to make the Cora Group’s evolv1 building a reality, Canada’s very first net-positive energy, multi-tenant office building in Waterloo! We have planted thousands of trees to create equitable green infrastructure in school yards, business sites, condominiums, and community parks. We co-lead community climate action work with the amazing Reep Green Solutions and all 8 of our local municipal governments for the creation of an equitable, prosperous, resilient, low carbon future for all. We work with the Clean Economy Ecosystem of more than 125 companies, research groups and community organizations promoting leading edge, clean innovation. The knowledge and technologies are available. We can move to a positive, inspiring economy supporting generations to come.
My name is Angie Koch – I made a radical change in my life to start Fertile Ground Farm, a small, local, ecological farm for sustainable fresh food production. The choice of growing our own food – on urban and rural land – teaches us about the natural world. It is the work itself that is enlivening, by plunging our hands into the soil, breathing the fresh air, listening to the birdsong and harvesting the produce. As we listen to our troubled earth, we need to change how we live, how we grow our food, how we use and preserve our rural and urban lands. As we listen to our troubled earth, we need to change how we live, how we farm, how we use and prioritize and preserve our rural and urban land for growing food. Food naturally brings us together – in its growing, its sharing and its eating. Growing food grounds us in the realities of our own limits, something Earth is reminding us to be attentive to, taking only what we need. This is the work of regeneration. Regeneration means to renew, regrow, or restore. We can heal our souls while restoring the resilience of our communities and of the land.
