Aurora resident Desiree Jeckalejs wants to find a way to help her homeless nephew find housing in the GTA.
Jeckalejs said it is difficult to find housing for people like him, struggling with mental health issues and now having been on the streets for years.
It brought her to an information session on Blue Door’s next housing project in Newmarket, hoping to find something that could help her nephew and others like him in the future.
“I’m trying very hard to help him but there’s like walls. Like you hit a wall no matter where you go and no matter what service you try to tap into, it’s really difficult,” she said. “It’s virtually impossible to get housing.”
Blue Door is preparing to build 14 emergency and transitional housing units on 835 Gorham St. and held an information session in Aurora Oct. 3. The housing charity is demolishing Kevin’s Place in a bid to use the land better, turning 12 single-suites into 14 stacked townhouse units, most multi-bedroom that could accommodate families. Newmarket and Aurora residents attended the drop-in information session at the Construct facility in Aurora to hear more about the plans.
Newmarket resident Vernon Abellera lives nearby. He said he wanted to find out what was happening in the area and address concerns about traffic and security.
“It’s a great project for the Town of Newmarket … we need some housing, like affordable housing, to the point that we should not be compromising the safety of the community at the same time,” Abellera said. “Hopefully everything will be smooth sailing.”
The project has been in the works for some time. Blue Door got municipal backing for ministerial zoning in January 2023, but the province only approved the order in July of this year. Now, Blue Door plans to proceed with the demolition of the former Kevin’s Place site in November.
Blue Door CEO Michael Braithwaite said the construction process should take 18 to 24 months.
He said they wanted to have this session to be a good neighbour and inform people about the project.
“We want to continue to build a relationship with our community,” Braithwaite said, adding that they have heard some traffic concerns from people. “But a lot of support around, ‘Blue Door’s been here a long time, we respect and really like them, and we need this” is what I heard.”
The project will provide emergency spaces, plus transitional housing for up to a year at an affordable rate. Braithwaite said they would work with partners at York Region to decide on and fill the spaces from the region’s waiting list for affordable housing, as well as the “by names” list of the most vulnerable people in the community.
Aurora resident Lynn Webb said that she wanted to see what the project was about. She also expressed some disappointment seeing Newmarket get another housing project like this after the Aurora town council rejected a larger shelter proposal in February.
“There’s been a real initiative to be creative in how we deal with housing,” Webb said. “So I’m interested to see how many folks might benefit from this project … It’s a good use of space obviously.”
Newmarket resident Joe Healy said something like this is beneficial.
“Hopefully benefit a lot of people who need that help,” Healy said. “Help improves the livelihood of the people housed there.”
Jeckalejs said she wants to see more affordable housing, with good service support in the community. She said she would have liked to have seen something bigger and taller in the space that could have allowed for more units.
“Any housing is good housing for those lucky few, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the need,” she said.
