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Orangeville man wants relocation from non-profit housing

August 22, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Jovanny Rosa feels like a man caught between a rock and a hard place.

And he wants out.

Services and Housing in the Province (SHIP) is a non-profit that’s been providing housing and health services for 30 years in the Region of Peel, Dufferin County, west Toronto, and the Region of Waterloo.

SHIP serves more than 5,000 clients and has a waitlist laden with 1,500 names. They manage more than 1,200 housing units, of which 300 are SHIP-owned.

The group is the third largest mental health and addictions supportive housing provider in the province. Their largest building has 232 units. The smallest has four housing units.

The group most recently converted the former motel at 236 First Street in Orangeville into housing units for people and families of low to moderate income. That facility features 27 supportive housing units.

SHIP has operated in Dufferin County for the past 15 years and manages 100 additional supportive housing units scattered throughout the region. 

Rosa, 60, collects benefits from the Ontario Disability Support Program, and is in a supportive housing unit operated by SHIP on Broadway in Orangeville. He said he was told before his move from Brampton that the Orangeville housing unit was beautiful and he’d be living around people who easily get along with neighbours.

“That’s what I’m looking for,” he said. “Peace.”

He discovered the facility in which SHIP placed him is for people nursing addiction issues. He doesn’t have addiction issues and is misplaced there.

There was a particularly loud domestic dispute his first night at the facility, he said.

And there are other issues. He said there are people smoking tobacco, marijuana, and even crack cocaine inside the building. That’s problematic for Rosa, who has asthma, because his apartment door has gaps between the door and its jamb.

Rosa said the gap is wide enough for him to be seen from the hallway preparing meals in his kitchen. He’s had three major asthma attacks that required hospital attention, he said.

His apartment was broken into and his prescription medication was stolen.

Rosa’s vehicle was vandalized with scratches while parked at the facility.

Once he ordered a new cellphone. It was delivered to another resident at the facility.

“This is no good,” he said. “I live very tense at this place.”

Rosa said he asked SHIP to relocate him to a facility for residents with health and mobility issues. But Rosa said he was told he has to wait a year before the organization could move him.

He has 10 fractured vertebrae and requires a housing unit closer to ground level.

“People don’t see this objectively,” he said. “It’s not about replacing my medication. People shouldn’t have been in my apartment.”

Lesley Nagoda, the organization’s CEO, could not be reached for comment.

Rosa has written letters, requesting a move to an apartment more suited to his needs. But he said he’s received letters in reply that claim he’s been harassing SHIP staff on the issue.

“My phone calls are harassment, but the rowdy tenants are normal,” he said and shook his head, exasperated.

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