The City of Stratford will support Optimism Place women’s shelter as it prepares to break ground on a 6,000 square-foot, three-floor expansion to its current shelter building next month.
The City of Stratford will provide a grant of more than $82,000 to support Optimism Place women’s shelter as it begins on an 18-bed, 6,000 square-foot expansion of its current building on Freeland Drive.
At Monday’s finance and labor relations committee meeting, city councilors addressed a request that the city waive all development charges, site plan and building permit fees — equivalent to roughly $82,500 — and expedite the building-permit process as the women’s shelter prepares to break ground on the construction project next month.
“The services we provide in the shelter and in the community are part of what ensures women and their children remain safe and have the supports they need to transition safely back into the communities of Stratford and Perth County,” Optimism Place executive director Jasmine Clark wrote in a letter to the city backing up the organization’s request.
“As we emerge from the pandemic and the number of women seeking emergency shelter continues to grow, the need for individual, accessible emergency shelter spaces continues to be paramount. We are fortunate to have the space on our existing footprint and resources at our existing facility in order to easily accommodate an expansion within the current zoning with seamless integration into our existing building.”
While Clark told the Beacon Herald by email that details of the expansion are being kept under wraps until it is officially announced at a celebration at the Christian Reformed Church of Stratford on Sept. 8, her letter to the city indicates that the expansion would include three fully accessible floors, 10 bedrooms, seven washrooms, three laundry rooms, a new playground, two counseling offices, a multipurpose meeting space and a kitchenette.
In a staff report to committee, infrastructure director Taylor Crinklaw said that while the city can’t actually waive development charges, councilors could decide to offer a grant to Optimism Place that covers all or a portion of the development charges — about $71,700 — as well as all or a portion of the building-permit and site-plan-application fees — which combined would be about $10,400.
“I do think that Optimism Place is a really critical community partner for us and I think it’s a way the city can support Optimism Place going forward,” Coun. Jo-Dee Burbach said. ” … I’m not sure if the timing would work, but would Optimism Place be an organization that would qualify for a community grant and could we put this through next year’s budget as a community grant proposal?”
While having the shelter apply for a community grant in next year’s budget is possible, Stratford director of corporate services Karmen Krueger said the organization would likely need to cover those city fees up front, which would mean, should councilors decide to support the expansion, the city would need to find a current funding source, possibly from the city’s tax-stabilization reserve or its fee-waivers reserve.
Councilors Dave Gaffney and Tom Clifford also raised concerns about setting a previous for other non-profits to request similar fee waivers for other constructions projects down the road.
“These fees cover (city) operations when we’re talking about building permits and so on,” Gaffney said. ” … This is a good project that has to move forward, but is this the right way to go forward with it?”
Ultimately, the matter was referred back to staff to see if Optimism Place could wait until later this year to apply for a 2023 community grant, however the discussion was back on the agenda for a special meeting of council Wednesday evening, during which councilors approved a project-specific grant for the amount requested by the women’s shelter.
“Last year we had to turn away 335 callers because our beds were full,” Clark said at Wednesday’s special meeting. “We can no longer be satisfied with the status quo. As a community we have a collective responsibility to work together towards creative solutions. In imagining a future without violence, Optimism Place’s board and staff needed to create a bold vision to expand our current shelter, which has largely been out of space with limited availability to be modified to meet the increasing needs.
” … We’ve barely made do with our current space with room sharing, adding cots and additional beds, converting and repurposing space to accommodate more bedrooms and adapting our programming to support more women to find safe and affordable housing in an impossible market.”
During her presentation, Clark said the shelter has thus far secured roughly 80 per cent of the $5 million it needs to complete the planned expansion. Clark noted in her initial letter to council that the expansion will be ready for move-in by August 2023.