Sandy Hill residents may have noticed a new mural at the corner of Cumberland Street and George Street. More than just a splash of colour, the mural is a collaboration between Operation Come Home (OCH) and Options Housing as part of the City of Ottawa’s Paint It Up! program.
The Paint It Up! program provided funding to employ eight youth to plan and create the mural. The youth selected to participate in the program are all accessing services through OCH, which aims to prevent homeless youth from becoming homeless adults.
Daniel Martelock, a local Ottawa artist who has helped OCH with a number of mural projects, assisted the youth in the planning process by obtaining materials and helped paint the mural.
He said the mural depicts the migration of geese, and is meant to give a feeling of hope to the residents of the area who may be living on the streets or experiencing struggles.
“It gives them a little bit of inspiration and maybe motivation to help them spread their wings and move along like geese and do better and find better ways of living.”
“There’s also a spring, kind of summery feel. We were going to put wintery stuff, but we decided to go with more of a positive, brighter, summery thing like bees and flowers. It just makes people feel good when they see that.”
Martelock said for the youth, these mural projects not only help them earn some extra money, but they offer a creative outlet that some of them might need.
“It gives them something else to think about because often they’re kind of down and out and feel like they have nowhere to go. They feel like they have nothing to do,” he said.
“That’s the main reason I do this, is to watch them get inspired. It makes me feel great when I see them getting involved.”
OCH executive director John Heckbert said helping youth find employment opportunities is one of the organization’s most important mandates.
“When they get involved in paid work like this, where their creative work has value … That can really be meaningful for them because they haven’t really gotten a lot of positive reinforcement about what they’re doing,” he said.
Heckbert said OCH has seen an alarming increase in demand for its services, which includes assistance in searching for employment, finding housing and completing high school.
In 2023, he said there were 8,727 total visits to the organization’s drop-in resource centre. By the end of August this year, he said the number had already surpassed 9,000, and was sitting at 12,900 visits by the end of October.
Heckbert projects there will be 15,900 total visits by the end of 2024, adding the centre’s reserves are running out. In 2025, he said OCH will need to either look to increase its funding or reduce programming.
He added that almost every charitable organization in the city has felt the rise in demand.
The intersection of Cumberland Street and George Street is home to one of Options Housing’s supportive housing sites. The sites include access to resources such as mental health support, help accessing food and support in completing taxes and paperwork, according to Options Housing’s website.
Catharine Vandelinde, the executive director of Options Housing, said the mural’s presence has sparked a decrease in graffiti and tagging, noting the Cumberland and George Street section was historically a popular graffiti spot.
“It’s a pretty drab corner of the city anyway, so to be able to put murals up there has been really incredible because it just added some beauty and some life to that corner,” she said.
Vandelinde said creative projects like this can help combat stigma.
“Sometimes we think of people who are homeless as simply being people who are homeless. And we forget about all the other aspects of what makes them a person.”
“This taps into that,” Vandelinde said. “This isn’t about them being homeless, this is about them being artists and being members of a community.”
Featured image by Julia DeJong/The Charlatan.
