Daycare, Warming Centre Don’t Mix: Residents
This is a petition started by residents against creating a warming centre at Kitchissippi United Church:
We call on Kitchissippi United Church and the City of Ottawa to:
1. Reconsider the use of Kitchissippi United Church Hall as a warming center, given that it is housed in the same building as the daycare, Ottawa Children’s Montessori Center. The Hall in question is used as the children’s play/gym area, where our kids regularly play and engage in activities during the winter months.
2. Explore alternative and more permanent and effective locations within Ottawa that can provide shelter services without placing vulnerable babies and children at risk.
3. Organize a community meeting to address parental concerns and ensure transparency throughout the decision-making process.
We are not confident that the safety measures listed below can be relied upon with the minimal staffing suggested. This proposal affects approximately 80 families in Ottawa.
For You:
Leiper Backs Church Warming Centre
Watson Ponders More Politics: THE VOTER
For The Love Of God, Not Watson: THE VOTER
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To be clear, this petition was started by the parents at the Montessori school that is housed in the Church. While this may include local residents, it does not necessarily. The local community associations have not been involved in this petition. The Church indicated at their October 27th Sunday service that they would be holding a meeting with their members after Sunday services on November 10 to discuss this issue and that members of the public would be welcome to attend and could speak.
Whether the parents are local or not, their children will be the ones most likely to be affected by the advent of the ‘warming centre’. The church itself is in a relatively isolated area, surrounded as it is primarily by the Queensway, Westgate Shopping Centre and parking lots for the ROH. There are a few residences to the east of it on Island Park but, in the main, the only people that the visitors to the ‘warming centre’ will be likely to come in contact with are the staff and children at the daycare. Leiper refers to it as a ‘school’ but this Montessori Centre includes children as young as four months of age.
The likelihood of contact is due to the fact that the parents, children and staff start arriving at 7 am which is when the ‘warming centre’ is supposed to be closing. Although the city staff will be able to shoo their visitors out of their facility, they cannot make them leave the grounds or the general area. If they choose not to take the van to another location, they are free to remain in the area.
Of further concern to the parents is that the space that is proposed for the ‘warming centre’ is a space that they use during the day, particularly in the winter, for play. It’s a large space and the parents worry that the two city staff who will be there overnight will not be able to properly clean it before the children use it.
Is this the best place for a ‘warming centre’ or would the City be better to be looking at one of the many community centre halls, school gyms or church halls elsewhere in the city that doesn’t have this potential conflict?