neighbourhoods while she served on the community
development and recreation committee, thinks it might
just be. "It gets some people pretty negative," she told
CBC Toronto.
-
As a city committee prepares to look at plans to
open six new shelters and relocate seven more,
Fletcher and other councillors are hoping a name
change may start to chip away at the perception that
shelters spell bad news for neighbourhoods.
Torontonians now have until Dec. 12 to pitch ideas for a
new name in an
online survey. The goal, said Fletcher, is to look at what would
"make the names more welcoming, more fitting into the
community, and have people not be so afraid of the word
'shelter.'"
Word 'doesn't really fit anymore'
Coming up with a new name is just one piece of a larger
engagement plan to get the public on side with the
building and relocation of shelters in the city. Through
advertising campaigns and public meetings, the hope is
to break down the attitudes behind episodes like
this one, when residents of Oakwood Village protested against a
men's shelter moving there, in part on the grounds that
criminal activity could return to their area. That
shelter, called Cornerstone Place, is now open on
Vaughan Road.
It's not the first time the city has taken
steps to tackle anti-shelter sentiment. It
rolled out an awareness campaign
targeting latent Toronto NIMBYism with
posters showing people saying things like
"I support homeless shelters … that are
far, far away from where I live." But
mulling a move away from the word
"shelter" is about more than just
sidestepping negativity, says Kira
Heineck, project lead of the Toronto
Alliance to End Homelessness. Heineck,
whose organization collaborated with the
city on the NIMBY ads, said a new name
could be used to reflect a new direction
being taken by Toronto.
"The new city plan is to
create centres that are much
more about helping people
find housing," she said.
"The word shelter doesn't
really fit anymore." That's
why Heineck favours a new
term that focuses on a
pathway
to permanent housing and stresses
that shelters are a
"community resource and a
positive thing." "I like the
language of housing services
or a housing service
system," she said.
The limits of language
"What's more important,"
said Heineck, "is that the
new model is going to focus
on more individualized help
for people to find housing."
Mark Horvath, a formerly
homeless man who founded
Invisible People, an online
platform that tells the
stories of homeless people
in the U.S. and Canada, told
CBC Toronto that while
language does make a
difference, he'd like effort
funnelled directly to
getting people out of the
cold.
Reducing the
stigma of
homelessness,
he said, can
only come
through a
broad
education
campaign.
"There needs
to be more
education
focused on the
general public
to reduce the
stigma … changing
a phrase isn't
going to do
it," said
Horvath. Using
language to
change public
attitude,
though, can be
powerful,
argues
Fletcher. She
recalled that
in 2010,
Woodgreen
Community
Services
opened First
Step To Home,
which houses
homeless
seniors,
noting that
Woodgreen
communicated
with the
community
first. "The
work they did
ahead of time
resulted in a
housewarming
party, by the
community, for
these men,
where
everything was
donated for
the new
apartment.
That's the
Toronto I'm
trying to
reach out to,"
she said. Link
to article:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/homeless-shelter-name-change-1.4405747