Hub youth shelter to become reality by 2016

Richmond Hill Liberal
April 11, 2014
By Kim Zarzour

If you’ve driven past the corner of Yonge Street and Crosby Avenue streets in downtown Richmond Hill lately, you may have noticed major construction underway on the east side of the street.

It’s the new location of the Richmond Hill Housing and Community Hub, and as the excavators dig down, hopes are rising up among York youth and those in need of a helping hand.

The Hub development will be the only facility of its kind in York Region, providing mixed-income housing and services for youth in the southern part of the region.

After a few months of controversy, the multi-service complex is finally being built, with the foundation expected to be completed later this spring and the building frame up by the fall.

If all goes according to plan, the facility will be complete in early 2016, according to Sylvia Patterson, York Region’s general manager of housing and long-term care.

“We see it as really good news,” Ms Patterson said.

The region’s 300 to 500 homeless youth especially are hoping to benefit, as The Hub will offer them support throughout the entire transition from homelessness to independent living.

It will be the only co-ed emergency shelter, south of Sutton and north of Toronto and the new location for 360ºkids Home Base Drop-In Centre, which has been assisting at-risk youth for more than 12 years.

Fourteen emergency shelter beds and 11 transitional beds will augment the youth housing that 360ºkids already operates in the region.

The Hub will work in partnership with the Region of York, boosted by a $1 million donation from the Town of Richmond Hill.

A group of protesters, led by Ward 2 Councillor Carmine Perrelli, attempted to derail the project last year.

Mr. Perrelli, now running for mayor, used townwide robocalls, placards, petitions, signs, pamphlets and mass mailings to fight what he said was a “sole-sourced project” unfairly pushed through and in the wrong location.

Those in favour of the project, however, outnumbered those against at an over-capacity council meeting last June, and since that time, the controversy seems to have subsided.

“We’ve had absolutely no issues,” Ms Patterson said. “We’ve been proceeding in a positive way with the community.”

A community liaison committee has been meeting with residents, neighborhood business owners, police, faith groups and others active in the community, to help pave the way for The Hub and “create the kind of connections in the community that will be important in the long run”, she said.