Carleton University’s student-run philanthropic club CU Smile launched a year-long campaign to end homelessness in Ottawa Jan. 1.
The nine-part initiative—dubbed “Operation Homelessness”—aims to address different elements of homelessness over the course of 2021.
“We understand that it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said fourth-year Carleton student and CU Smile member Mourad Abdelmonem. “We’re aiming for the moon hoping that we’ll land on the stars.”
Omar Al-Dib, a computer science major who graduated from Carleton in 2020, founded CU Smile in 2016 and said Operation Homelessness was created in response to increasing homelessness and food insecurity in Ottawa and across Canada.
During the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of food-insecure Canadians grew by 39 per cent, according to a September 2020 report from Community Food Centres Canada.
Al-Dib said he is inspired by CU Smile’s efforts to address homelessness through various projects but that those projects aren’t long-term solutions.
CU Smile has given 8,000 lunch bags to people in need but Al-Dib said he still feels like there’s more to be done.
“As soon as we made it to 8,000, I was looking around asking myself, why do I still have to make lunch bags?” Al-Dib said. “Why is there still someone that’s homeless that needs the lunch bag? Why doesn’t this thing go away? It was just a feeling that it’s not enough.”
On Jan. 31, CU Smile members collected around 50 bags of clothes for the Share the Warmth charity, the first of nine projects CU Smile hopes to tackle this year.
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More than just acting as a middle man for local charities and food distributors, Al-Dib said CU Smile hopes to end the stigma surrounding homelessness in Ottawa and raise awareness for how young people can contribute.
“A lot of people our age aren’t educated enough on homelessness or how easy it is to actually make an impact in someone’s life,” Al-Dib said. “We want to show people it’s not as difficult as it seems to do something to help someone else.”
To achieve its goals, CU Smile is collaborating with several Ottawa organizations, such as the Ottawa Food Bank. It is also reaching out to private companies and working with local MPs to acquire sponsorships and build public support for each Operation Homelessness project.
Caroline Cox, senior manager of communications and community and volunteer services at Shepherds of Good Hope, an Ottawa homeless shelter, said student activists can be transformative.
“Younger volunteers look at issues like homelessness through a much broader and systemic lens,” Cox said. “They care about ending homelessness, as opposed to just giving someone a pair of socks.”
“I really do think [a systemic lens] is how we’re going to move the dialogue on homelessness as a community, and we need the whole community to do that,” Cox said.
Abdelmonem said he believes CU Smile can make a real difference in Ottawa.
“CU Smile is … made from people who alone can probably not do that much,” Abdelmonem said. “We still have the power to impact and change so many lives.”
