Ottawa police continued to investigate the city’s fourth homicide of the year as friends and family gathered for the funeral of 21-year-old Jabeir Jemmie.

Police Sunday night released a photo of a man they are calling an “important witness” to Jemmie’s fatal stabbing and are asking the public for any information on the man. The black and white surveillance images show a young black man wearing a buttoned up golf shirt sitting in the backseat of a taxi cab.

The appeal comes after officers searched the city Saturday for both the knife used in the stabbing and another potential witness believed to be important to the case.

Jemmie, an Algonquin College engineering student, died in hospital Saturday morning from multiple stab wounds after an incident on the bar strip along Elgin Street.

More than 100 mourners, many from Ottawa’s small Eritrean community, attended his funeral ceremony on Sunday afternoon at the Ottawa Mosque on Northwestern Avenue near Tunney’s Pasture.

Several friends of Jemmie’s from Woodroffe High School also attended the service. Dozens of women wept loudly as the casket carrying Jemmie’s body was carried out of the mosque.

Jemmie had been treated by paramedics in front of the Scotiabank branch at Elgin and Frank streets around 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. He was believed to have been involved in a fight in the Living Room nightclub next to the bank.

Police have examined video recordings from a camera mounted outside The Standard, a bar located next door to Living Room, but have not publicly identified a suspect in the stabbing.

Staff Sgt. Rob Drummond said that police are still eagerly awaiting any information that either eye-witnesses or video footage might be able to provide to the investigation.

Jabeir Jemmie, an Algonquin College engineering student, died in hospital Saturday morning from multiple stab wounds.

Jemmie was stabbed several times in the abdomen in the minutes after bars closed. He lost vital signs as he arrived at hospital but was resuscitated and underwent emergency surgery. He died later Saturday morning.

On Saturday, Jemmie’s family had sat outside on the stoop of their Carlingwood home, consoling each other.

“He was a good kid,” a family member who asked not to be identified said. “To kids in the neighbourhood, he was a role model.”

When he was just eight years old, Jemmie, then a Grade 4 student at Connaught Public School, won a competition to design the cover of an annual community report. Students were asked to draw a representation of the word “community.” Jemmie responded by drawing people.

Mourners surround Jabier Jemmie’s casket after his funeral at Ottawa mosque on Northwestern St. in Ottawa, Sunday, August 24, 2014.

The young man, who went by the nickname Jabz online, liked the HBO show “The Wire” and listened to Nicki Minaj, according to his Facebook profile.

Jabier Jemmie’s casket is lifted by pall bearers from Ottawa mosque after his funeral on Northwestern St. in Ottawa, Sunday, August 24, 2014.

With files from Shaamini Yogaretnam

Related

• Fourth homicide of 2014 after stabbing near Elgin Street

A councillor is calling for more liquor inspectors on Elgin Street in the wake of the weekend stabbing death of Jabeir Jemmie.

“I have been concerned for quite some time about the very few provincial liquor licence inspectors who work for the AGCO,” said Coun. Diane Holmes of Somerset Ward, which covers Elgin Street. “They have an enormous number of restaurants and bars to oversee, and so in my opinion there is very little enforcement of the matters that bars are dealing with.”

The 21-year old died in hospital Saturday from multiple stab wounds. It was the city’s fourth homicide of the year. Jemmie was treated by paramedics in front of a Scotiabank branch next door to the Living Room nightclub, where he had been previously. Jemmie, who had been stabbed multiple times in the abdomen, was rushed to hospital but died later after undergoing emergency surgery.

“A lot of the fights that happen outside of bars and inside bars is as a result of people having too much alcohol,” said Holmes, adding she’s concerned with over-serving of alcohol in some establishments, which more oversight could combat. “I find there’s very little enforcement of (over-serving) which is a basic problem that leads to some of this kind of violence. I’m sure there are other factors as well, but this is a major factor.”

It is not known whether the Living Room nightclub had been inspected. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario could not be reached Monday afternoon for comment.

Holmes said police usually do an Elgin Street “blitz” at the beginning of the season, educating bars on their responsibilities. But that may not be enough.

“We always need more police presence,” said Holmes, “but there has to be some responsibility by the bar as well.”

Some business owners on Elgin Street are concerned for the safety of patrons in the area.

Mike Coughlan, owner of The Standard, a bar located next door to the Living Room, describes the street as a vibrant community and “a place where people go have fun,” but having a violent incident happen so close to his restaurant worries him.

He said that he hasn’t noticed an increased police presence on Elgin following Jemmie’s death.
Following the incident, Coughlan said he talked about the homicide with his staff, reminding them to continue to be vigilant about “not letting people in who might cause a problem in our establishment.”

Coughlan said that Jemmie wasn’t a customer at The Standard the night of the stabbing.

Related

• Ottawa Police interview witness to Elgin Street stabbing
• Police seek witness in fatal Elgin Street stabbing
• Fourth homicide of year after stabbing near Elgin Street

Past a faded couch on the front lawn, a trail of garbage leading up the stairs and a bylaw-infraction notice sticking out of the mailbox, three University of Ottawa student workers approach the door of an apartment on Blackburn Avenue in Sandy Hill.

“We’re just coming around to a) welcome you to the neighbourhood and b) let you know about the noise bylaw, which is 11 p.m. If you don’t respect it you get a $400 fine,” U of O community adviser Arielle D’Ippolito tells the young man who answers the door. He interrupts her there. He knows. He’s been fined before.

D’Ippolito – among a group of city and university staff and residents who are visiting spots where there have previously been problems – soldiers on, handing him a gift bag that includes a garbage schedule, parking advice and information about a community yard sale.

Knocking on about 200 doors for a few hours on the first day of the semester is one of the ways Sandy Hill’s two-year-old town and gown committee is trying to help residents and students live together in the historic neighbourhood.

But this kind of outreach, which can be dismissed as soon as the door closes and the bars open, isn’t enough for some people. Many, in Sandy Hill and beyond, are becoming increasingly vocal that more needs to be done to curtail disruptions in neighbourhoods where large numbers of university and college students live.

Students moved into new houses and apartments on the last weekend before the fall university term began, Aug. 30, 2014.

In the past year, several developments have shifted the conversation beyond noise and garbage complaints to whether the city needs to take a smarter, big-picture approach to off-campus student housing:

• In February, following proposals for large-scale private student housing and in anticipation of light-rail transit, 10 community associations – whose members say Ottawa has a student housing “crisis” – asked the city for a comprehensive accommodation strategy. It would be similar to plans some smaller Ontario cities have developed to at least anticipate student-housing demand;
• In March, city council shut down a private developer’s proposal to build a nine-storey student housing complex at Laurier Avenue East and Friel Street. That wasn’t the end of it, though. Next month the city must defend its decision before the Ontario Municipal Board;
• In April, council closed the loophole that previously allowed homes, frequently in student neighbourhoods, to be converted into apartments with little oversight;
• In June, bylaw staff were ordered to study the possibility of landlord licensing, which could include mandatory inspections and fees, to deal with students renting homes that may have been illegally altered to fit more people in;
• This month construction begins on a nine-storey private student residence on Mann Avenue, steps from the University of Ottawa. Earlier this summer, another developer snapped up a downtown hotel to turn it into residence for next fall.
• These and other developments underpin calls for the city to take a broader look at what it means to play host to tens of thousands of students each year.

But tackling student neighbourhoods is a divisive debate, which has drawn the attention of Ontario’s Human Rights Commission when it’s erupted in other university and college towns.

In Ottawa today, there’s even disagreement among the city’s key players about the central questions: Does off-campus student housing really need to be strategized? And if so, how?

Furniture sits on the side of the road in Sandy Hill, — to be moved in or abandoned? — as students, returned on the last weekend before the fall university term started, Aug. 30, 2014.

Tensions between schools and communities aren’t unique to Ottawa or new. In his book Town & Gown: From Conflict to Cooperation, Michael Fox cites the St. Scholastica Day riot of 1355 in Oxford, which began as a dispute between students and townspeople at a tavern.

During the conflict, 63 students and 30 local residents were killed. When it was over, a special charter was created stipulating that the mayor and councillors were to march annually through the streets, paying the university a penny for each scholar killed.

More than 650 years later, Fox says, many schools and municipalities remain awkward neighbours.

“There’s been a laissez-faire attitude: ‘Let’s go about our own business and if there’s a problem then we’ll deal with it,’” says Fox. “Of course, what we’ve seen time and time again, is unfortunate events happen.”

With post-secondary enrolment up more than 43 per cent in Ontario since 2002, the pressure to stop history from repeating itself every September is growing in communities across the province.

Last year, Yinzhou Xiao studied Ontario university and college towns for her master’s degree in planning at the University of Waterloo.

She found the same story over and over: Residents close to campuses feel their neighbourhoods have turned into “student ghettos,” with noise, garbage and parking nightmares.

“The problem is, a lot of universities are surrounded by low-density neighbourhoods,” she says.

“There’s a trend that families are moving out from these neighbourhoods, and these houses, where families lived, they’re converted into student housing with more units, more density, and in a lot of cases the physical environment is deteriorating.”

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Some cities have responded. Xiao found at least six – Waterloo, London, Kingston, Oshawa, Hamilton and Barrie – set out formal strategies for student accommodation or neighbourhoods. The plans, the same kind being asked for in Ottawa, had various goals: attracting private student residences to strategic spots, setting an expected ratio of students to long-term residents, asking for off-campus codes of conduct, or just getting precise data on where students live.

“I can’t say there’s a single solution because cities have different political or economic contexts,“ says Xiao. “These neighbourhoods … they’re at different stages of studentification.”

That’s certainly true of the areas around Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and Algonquin College.

In the 1990s, before student populations exploded, relations were strained between Carleton students and their neighbours Old Ottawa South. Mayor Jim Watson, then a councillor who lived in the neighbourhood, says he resolved some of those tensions with his lawn mower, pizza and flyers.

One of the biggest complaints he heard was that students didn’t mow their lawns.

“So I started lending out my lawnmower,” Watson says. “I put a flyer around the neighbourhood and I had about 20 groups of students that would come and I’d just leave it on my back porch. It was a push one. And it solved a lot of the problems.”

Watson also created a committee, much like the Sandy Hill town and gown committee, consisting of police, city and university staff and others from the community.

They held welcome parties for students and made sure students knew their rights and responsibilities – by having pizzerias send deliveries out with posters outlining how to get along with neighbours.

Since then, the need for such a committee has disappeared, says Coun. David Chernushenko, who now represents Capital ward.

He moved to Old Ottawa South in the 1990s and remembers the out-of-hand street parties. These days, he says, only a handful of problem addresses are among the “student housing sprinkled throughout” the neighbourhood, generally from Bronson Avenue to Bank Street.

There are a few reasons for the relative peace today, despite the university’s growth from 18,700 full-time students a decade ago to 23,800 this year. Chief among them is that Carleton had land to keep building on-campus residences and the O-Train arrived in 2001, allowing students to live farther away.

“On a typical academic term (weekday morning) … the O-Train pours people out, coming from both directions,” says director of housing David Sterritt.

But while the pains of studentification may be largely a part of Old Ottawa South’s past, in Sandy Hill, they are very much a part of the present.

Unlike Carleton, land is scarce at the University of Ottawa, which is practically landlocked by the Rideau Canal and Sandy Hill. But like most Ontario campuses, the school has undergone unprecedented growth. This fall, about 35,300 full-time students are expected, an increase of more than 10,000 from a decade ago.

“Things were happening so fast that it was very difficult to plan for them,” says U of O’s executive director of physical resources, Claudio Brun del Re.

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On-campus residence spaces haven’t kept pace. Even after announcing two new housing projects this year, U of O is looking for 635 more spaces – just to meet freshman demand.

Off campus, where students tend to live after first year, problems have been exacerbated by a spate of housing conversions in Sandy Hill. Family homes were being transformed into dorm-like apartments, driving longtime residents out.

Michael and Arlene McGinn, who moved to Henderson Avenue as students in 1979, have had a front-row seat to dozens of frosh weeks.

“The first week of September, I never call the city, unless I hear broken bottles,” says Arlene. “We’re tolerant. We put up with more noise than most people.”

For those who do call, the city says it is doing what it can. At a June town and gown meeting, bylaw stats were presented, showing enforcement has ramped up, including through a zero tolerance approach after 11 p.m. In the first quarter of this year, there were 350 noise calls in the ward, compared to 530 the year before.

Coun. Mathieu Fleury, who represents the neighbourhood, took things a step further ahead of move-in weekend. His office sent a letter to a dozen owners of “problematic addresses,” asking them to a closed-door meeting.

If landlords chose not to attend, the letter stated, investigation and enforcement “will be increased to the full extent possible by the various agencies involved.”

At the meeting, some landlords honestly seemed to not know their tenants had drawn so much attention from the city, said Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization chairman John Dickie, who is now looking for ways the city can share tenant concerns with landlords without violating privacy legislation.

“We didn’t target a landlord or a person, we targeted the 16 properties that had the most calls in the last three years, and we attached that property to the owner,” says Fleury, who describes those who showed up as being happy once they realized the city was trying to work with them to reduce complaint calls.

Also, after a year-long freeze on housing conversions, the city has also now closed the loophole that allowed developers to add units without much scrutiny.

All of this comes too late for the McGinns. The expansion of the home backing onto theirs had already started and they’ve put their home up for sale.

“We see the writing’s on the wall: Get out of here,” Arlene says.

Across town, residents in the Ryan Farm and City View neighbourhoods near Algonquin are closely following the developments in Sandy Hill. What’s happening there, some fear, offers a glimpse of their future.

The combination of limited residence rooms for an expanding student body is the case there, as well. Enrolment at the college has risen from about 11,000 full-time students in 2002 to 17,170 this fall. On-campus residence, run by a private company, houses about 1,000 students and the school has no plans to expand it.

“It’s not our bread and butter,” says Algonquin director of physical resources John Tattersall. “It’s not what we’re here for.”

Neighbours, who check out nearby rentals on the website Kijiji and ask students about their housing, say they’re seeing traces of what’s played out near other campuses.

“We notice more cars and just the lack of upkeep on the outside of the houses,” says John Makadi, who moved to David Drive decades ago, when there was still farmland in the area. “You can very easily spot which ones have owners who take pride in their properties and which ones are, I’ll call them the ‘absentee landlords.’ “

John Makadi lives on David Drive near Algonquin College.

“Illegal rooming houses” is the term used by College ward Coun. Rick Chiarelli to describe homes being secretly converted for more tenants than planned. He says it’s time to do something about the properties – which bylaw officers can’t access without a warrant or an invitation – because residents don’t want “to become another Sandy Hill.”

Chiarelli introduced a motion in June to the community and protective services committee, asking bylaw to study the possibility of licensing landlords and other enforcement solutions for places where students live. The committee broadened the review, expected to finish mid-2015, to look at what a city-wide approach would look like as well.

But residents calling for a student strategy say the issue is more about long-term planning than enforcement. One reason for the push is the LRT, which will make it easier for all students to live farther from campus, where rent is cheaper. South Keys saw that happen after the O-Train came into service.

Also on the horizon are more private developers building or maintaining off-campus residences, which has been a longer-standing practice in the U.S.

This summer, Campus Suites Inc. president Henry Morton bought the downtown Cooper Street Holiday Inn, where he plans to create student housing, with security and housing staff.

Anecdotally, he’s heard 3,000 beds are needed for both universities. He’s also expecting continued growth at both universities and more international students, whose parents might be more inclined to chip in extra money for higher-end accommodation, as opposed to old homes with lots of students living in them.

“We saw the market, liked the market, knew what the schools were doing,” says Morton. “We felt very comfortable with it and believe there’s a lack of competition and a lack of quality housing here, so we felt there was a market that would be very receptive to what we want to do.”

Predictably, not everyone is as receptive as the market.

Henry Morton is redeveloping the old Holiday Inn at 111 Cooper St. into a student housing complex.

“When we found out, I wasn’t very happy,” said Hans Koeck, 70, who has lived across the street from the hotel for 28 years. “Let’s face it — it’s a quiet residential area. I have nothing against students, I was a student too, but they’re rowdy.”

There may soon be another private residence on Laurier Avenue East and Friel Street. Council nixed plans for the building at a meeting in March, when the mayor said the development’s density didn’t fit with the neighbourhood. The developer’s appeal will be heard in October by the Ontario Municipal Board, which has the ability to overturn the city’s decision. The board recently allowed a controversial private residence in downtown Toronto.

Barry Hauer, who is set to start building his own private residence on Mann Avenue this month, said much attention is being paid to the Ottawa case. If the developer prevails, he expects more private residences to be built nearby.

“The University of Ottawa, I believe, proportionately has the least amount of available beds per student, compared to any other university in Ontario,” says Hauer, of available housing near campus.

All of this is driving the call for a fundamental shift in how the city deals with student housing, one that smaller Ontario municipalities have embraced.

“We think there are issues that are much bigger than Sandy Hill. Both universities and Algonquin, there are so many things in common that we’d really like to see tackled in a very serious way,” says Bob Forbes, vice-president of Action Sandy Hill, one of the community associations that pleaded with Watson for a student accommodation strategy in a February letter.

“It’s a good thing universities are growing in Canada. This is really important. We’re never going back to a manufacturing-based economy, we need highly educated people, so if we’re going to grow — that’s an excellent thing for Canada. But to grow without planning is really quite irresponsible,” Forbes says.

Bob Forbes, vice-president of Action Sandy Hill.

After calling on the city to come up with the strategy to no avail, Forbes and his group are now taking matters into their own hands, focusing on researching best practices from other places that Ottawa should adopt.

Oshawa, for example, drafted a student-accommodation strategy four years ago to deal with rapid growth at Durham College, Trent University’s campus there and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which opened in 2003.

“We did this to support the university and to support great choice for the students, and that has all kinds of intangible positives for Oshawa,” says the city’s commissioner of development services Tom Hodgins.

Some plans, like Oshawa’s, have zeroed-in on the best places for student housing development, based on expected enrolment and existing neighbourhoods. There have been 2,800 new off-campus beds built according to the strategy. Oshawa also asked schools to hold housing fairs for students, to collect data on where students live and questioned whether they would develop off-campus codes of conduct.

In Barrie, the city offered financial incentives for people willing to develop 11 specific properties, hoping to minimize the impact of student housing on residential areas.

Some cities shy away from planning for students because they don’t want to look like they’re discriminating, says researcher Xiao, who found many municipalities mentioned the need for the right mix between students and long-term residents. But when she asked what the right ratio would be, few were willing to put a number to it.

“(That) would be people zoning. We are not permitted to do that by law,” one planner told Xiao.

But Ontario Human Rights Commission chief commissioner Barbara Hall, who has become involved in municipal responses to students, says student-focused plans are fine, as long as they’re focused on creating housing and don’t restrict where people can live.

She says landlord licensing shouldn’t only apply to areas with student populations, though. “If these are legitimate planning issues, then they should apply wherever people live,” Hall says. “And if they are in just one place then it, you know, suggests quite strongly that it’s just targeting one group of people.”

Watson, for one, is not convinced a student plan or licensing is necessary in Ottawa. The city’s official plan identifies growth areas and there is already a comprehensive transportation plan, he says.

“We don’t go around and plan where seniors should live and we don’t go around and plan where engineers should live,” he says. “So why should we have this special status for students?”

Councillors representing campus areas, however, say a municipal student plan is worth considering.

Chernushenko, whose ward includes Carleton and part of U of O, says the city ought to understand how campuses will grow and what housing will be needed.

“It’s time to deal with this in partnership with universities and colleges sitting around the same table and planning,” Chernushenko says. “Call it a strategy or a plan, it’s about getting together and better understanding what the needs are now and what they’re going to be.

“Is the problem really about landlords taking advantage of a student market, to squeeze many people in and undermine the character of a neighbourhood? Is that the biggest problem? Or is the problem of the future going to be private-sector developers building great big towers, which they’re putting students into and the issues that will come with that — that’s what I’d like to understand,” he says.

Chernushenko says he recently met with city planners to see what can and needs to be done, though requests to interview a planner about the issue were denied. “Student housing is a bylaw matter and planning has no involvement,” city spokeswoman Courtney Ferguson said in an email.

For Fleury, a strategy could be a good idea in the future. But to avoid doing too much at once, he says, the city should first deal with the results of its licensing review, update Sandy Hill community planning documents and await U of O’s campus master plan.

“We have to recognize 10 per cent of our population is post-secondary students in the city,” Fleury says. “We thrive on it and it also has impacts on our day-to-day, so what that means for our future, we just have to analyze it.”

While officials at U of O and Algonquin said they were either impartial or hadn’t considered whether the city should have a student strategy, Carleton’s director of student affairs Ryan Flannagan said it’s worth thinking about.

“We would appreciate clarity and a plan in place so our students know what the lay of the land is, moving forward so they can plan accordingly,” Flannagan says.

“We would welcome any type of plan that is moderate and reasonable, that sets a reasonable playing field in place for everybody: students, landlords, community members. I think that’s just smart urban planning on the part of the city.”

23,800

Number of full-time students at Carleton this fall

5,000+

How many more full-time students there are compared to a decade ago

35,300

Number of full-time students at University of Ottawa this fall

10,000+

How many more full-time students there are compared to a decade ago

17,170

Number of full-time students at Algonquin College this fall

6,000 +

How many more full-time students there are compared to 2002

cmills@ottawacitizen.com

Students calling Ottawa home while earning diplomas or degrees are often left out of the student-housing conversation.

Decisions shaping where and how they live are generally made years before they arrive, so the Citizen caught up with some students to hear about how their living arrangements have worked out.

Eleen Marzook, Carleton

Marzook, who is going into the last year of her Carleton undergrad, has lived in Sandy Hill for three years. “It’s mostly because I can get to work easily and I like living near the Market and you know, basically there’s everything around here,” she says, adding it’s a convenient 10-minute bus ride to Carleton campus.

This summer, she moved to a big eight-bedroom house at Friel and Wilbrod streets. Until then, she lived a few streets away, in a house split up into apartments. Marzook said she had problems with a landlord who was usually out of town and not getting heat during the winter.

Generally she’s had good relations with her neighbours but admits “it does get a little out of control here sometimes.” She is currently fighting a bylaw noise complaint she and her roommates got last semester on one of their birthdays.

Kadeem Gordon, Algonquin

Algonquin College student Kadeem Gordon.

Gordon, who is starting a marketing program in the fall but has taken general courses at the college for a year, recently moved to a Canter Boulevard house. He stays there with five roommates, whom he found online.

“I like it,” says Gordon, who pays $450 in rent each month. “I need a room and a bed, because I never stay home.”

Gordon says he goes out for parties, preferably elsewhere in the neighbourhood. “For the most part, as long as you take care of the property, you’re respectful, you shouldn’t really have a problem. Me and my friends party until all hours of the morning with loud music and we’ve never really got a complaint. Well actually, that’s a lie, I got a complaint down there,” he says, pointing to a home not far from Ryan Farm Park, “but that was one night.”

He says most problems can be solved if neighbours just talk to each other rather than calling bylaw or the police.

Related

• When town and gown collide

Ann Morneau, Carleton

Two years ago, Morneau moved to the South Keys condo her parents bought for her and her sister. The O-Train makes it only about a smooth, seven-minute commute to campus.

Morneau, a master’s student who went to U of O for her undergrad and later to Algonquin, hasn’t always had a good living situation. Her parents were living overseas when she enrolled at U of O, and she ended up not getting into residence. Her parents found her a place they thought would be safe in Orleans but there was some trouble with the landlord, so eventually Morneau found a sublet downtown. But she says she was kicked out, possibly because of her boyfriend’s behaviour.

For the three years left of her undergrad, she managed to get a placed in U of O’s residence. “Once I  got into campus housing it was fabulous,” says Morneau. “Everything was on foot, I could go home in the middle of the day, I didn’t have to pack my lunches, I could go to the gym. Everything was right there.”

Mariah Campbell, U of O

A tenant-landlord situation forced Mariah Campbell, 21, out of her Sandy Hill apartment.

Campbell and spent part of her last summer as an undergrad researching landlord and tenant laws, in meetings with the university’s legal aid office and dealing with city officials, after she says she was forced to leave her Sandy Hill apartment prematurely.

Her former landlord declined to comment to the Citizen. But Campbell said she and her roommates had several disagreements with him before matters escalated.

Finding the perfect place wasn’t her top priority, she said. “My parents weren’t too happy but I was paying for it myself. That was one of the reasons I rented that place,” Campbell said. “It was a bit rundown but I was like, ‘I really don’t need a nice place.’”

Earlier this summer, she moved to a new place in Centretown.

Matthew Timmermans, U of O

Timmermans, who is going into his final year of a music undergrad, arrived in Ottawa from York Region in 2010. After one year in residence, he moved to Vanier, where he paid $400 a month to live with two friends in a spacious triplex. Some problems came up with the building, including bedbugs, mice and maintenance problems that weren’t fixed quickly.

“Going right from rez, into that apartment, we didn’t really know the laws of Landlord and Tenant Board and stuff, so there are probably a lot of things that happened in there that we really should have fought,” he says. “We just assumed because it was cheap that was how we should be living.”

Recently, Timmermans moved with two roommates to a highrise apartment building on Lees Avenue, within walking distance to U of O. “Definitely being close to school right now is a big deal for us,” he says.

Tony Rochon, Algonquin

Algonquin College student Tony Rochon.

Rochon, a robotics engineering student, has rented a basement room in a house at Merivale Road and and Meadowlands Drive West for about three years, where the landlord is also onsite.

He pays about $450 a month to be able to walk, drive or bike to school. “It’s the price and it’s convenient,” Rochon says.

Rochon thinks some people are being dramatic about what it means to have students as neighbours near the college. “The workload is really heavy. There’s no time to fool around,” he says. “It’s not the ‘60s.”

cmills@ottawacitizen.com

Neighbourhood concerns about “illegal rooming houses” near Algonquin College have prompted city bylaw staff to review the possibility of rental licensing and other enforcement options for near-campus neighbourhoods.

The review was requested earlier this summer by College ward. Coun Rick Chiarelli, who asked staff to look at options including rental licensing, which Ottawa doesn’t use but some other Ontario municipalities do.

As bylaw chief Linda Anderson begins the review, she and west-end manager of bylaw enforcement Roger Chapman sat down with the Citizen to talk about the review, the city’s 82 licensed rooming houses and bylaw’s current response to Ottawa’s near-campus areas.

What’s going on with alleged illegal rooming houses?

Chapman: There’s been an increae of calls in some of the areas around the university in Sandy Hill and Algonquin College, with complaints about alleged rooming houses. Typically when we investigate these complaints, we find it’s more about student accommodation, than a rooming house. Yes it’s students, yes it can be four, five or six students renting, in some cases four- and five-bedroom homes together. But it really is shared accommodations. Typically what we look for in a rooming house is locks on the doors, numbers on the doors, conversions of common areas, essentially zero common area other than the kitchen and washroom facilities. Particularly around Algonquin, there’s been an increase in calls about alleged illegal rooming houses in the last year. Really it’s a few residents that have been there for years that have seen a change in their community.

Why aren’t these rooming house situations?

Anderson: What exists today in our rooming house bylaw was intended specifically for vulnerable sector people. To ensure their privacy, locks on their doors, their mail has to be in a secure location, there have to be so many washrooms.

My freedom of information request says there have been 30 illegal rooming house complaints so far this year. Where were they?

Anderson: Concentrated around post-secondary education. That’s where there tends to be a larger number of people living in shared accommodation.

Are they difficult to investigate?

Anderson: As long as somebody’s living somewhere, it’s considered a dwelling and we have no right of access. Somebody can report something is operating as an illegal conversion or student housing. But we have to gather enough evidence to convince a justice to grant us a warrant to enter the property, unless we’re invited in by a tenant.

With licensing, the idea is that you’d get into more properties.

Anderson: It doesn’t guarantee we’re going to be allowed access. We can put in the licensing regime that it requires a property standards inspection. But the owner can operate without a licence, in which case we’d charge them with operating without a licence. But unless we’re invited in, we still have to have a warrant to enter into a dwelling. People that want to be compliant would let us in. But those who choose not to be would not be inviting us in, I would hazard a guess.

Your review is expected next year. Do you anticipate looking at anything other than licensing?

Anderson: Other than licensing, I’m not aware of any other tools other than applying our bylaws, which we already do. So that’s kind of part of our fact-finding mission. There are post-secondary education facilities throughout the province – how do they deal with it?  You look at Queen’s University, for example. I think the difference there is it’s probably like 100 per cent students near the university. What we have in certain areas of the city is a 50/50 mix.

Will you be looking at planning – for example, student accommodation strategies?

Anderson: Zoning amendments have already been put in place to close the conversions loophole, I think they’ll go a long way in addressing some issues. I think planning has done their part through those measures. Now we just have to see if there are other tools out there that would help us do a better job. If something else comes up that appears to be the perfect solution and it’s not within our mandate, then we’ll meet with whomever we need to and have a discussion about it. From our perspective, really the focus is going to be on: is licensing an effective tool?

Is there a less problematic type of student housing for bylaw?

Anderson: Often times when the student housing is contained in a residence-like structure, it’s far less problematic, in terms of our workload, the community and such. Usually when there’s larger student housing, there’s frequently an onsite supervisor or superintendent of some kind.

What were the changes to the noise bylaw recently?

Anderson: What we’ve done in Rideau-Vanier, Capital and Somerset wards, is change our protocol to zero tolerance. Instead of issuing warnings after 11 o’clock at night, we issue a charge. I think that’s had the most effect there, so we don’t get the repeat calls. The volume of complaints in Sandy hill has reduced. The problem there, of course, is come Sept. 1 it will be a whole new group of people. But we work with the Eastern Ontario Landlords Association to hand out fliers about noise, garbage, parking regulations.

How do the various near-campus areas differ?

Chapman: In the Algonquin College area, we don’t have a lot of music complaints. We don’t tend to get that pre-party and post-party. Students in Sandy Hill and that area, they tend to party until 10 o’clock or so and then they head to the bar. Then it’s when they come back at 1:30, 2 o’clock, it’s a problem. Leaving the bars and walking back to their residences, not necessarily in the student housing areas, a lot of it’s walking from Elgin Street or the Market back home.

Anderson: Algonquin as Sandy Hill, it’s not about garbage, graffiti, noise, parking. Sandy Hill is an extreme urban environment. Ryan Farm is more suburban. Ward 12 (home to Sandy Hill) is our highest call volume, bar none: parking and zoning and noise.

Chapman: There aren’t a lot of calls about illegal rooming houses around Carleton. We get the odd one. I wouldn’t say there’s an increase there.

Is there any other outreach that you’re doing?

Anderson: Town and gown in Sandy Hill. We would strongly encourage Algonquin College to perhaps think about establishing the same kind of committee, it’s been fairly effective in Sandy Hill, it gets everybody at the same table. (Chiarelli says he has meetings with both residents and Algonquin officials regularly.)

Is there anything proactive happening that I should know about?

Anderson: We’re not big proactive folks… at 80,000 calls coming in requesting our service and a limited number of officers.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

cmills@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/CarysMills 

Related

• Why some university towns are licensing landlords
• When town and gown collide

The Rideau-Vanier ward is home to thousands of voting-age students. While many live off-campus, hundreds of others live in the University of Ottawa’s eight residence buildings.

Given there’s so much talk about getting young people to vote, it doesn’t come as a surprise that some candidates in the race would want to canvass on campus.

But when challenger Marc Aubin tried to do just that, he found himself locked out. The university, it seems, wasn’t allowing candidates to do door-to-door canvassing.

I emailed the University of Ottawa, Carleton University and Algonquin College to see what rules each institution had in place when it comes to political canvassers. Here are their responses:

University of Ottawa (sent by Caroline Milliard, media relations manager)

“Candidates can only canvass in what is deemed as public areas. As an example, they can set up a table in the lobby of a residence. Please note that only 2 of our residences do actually have a lobby (out of  8 residences). Door knocking is not permitted as none of our residences are considered “self-contained” units and residents have a right to privacy. This also applies to our apartment style residences as they are not considered “self-contained” because they include shared kitchens and bathrooms.”

Carleton University (sent by Chris Cline, media relations officer)

“Carleton does not restrict door-to-door canvassing in residence. However, safety mechanisms like locking entrances on residence floors can make it logistically difficult for political candidates to go door-to-door on campus. Interested candidates are allowed to set up tables in the lobbies of residence buildings so they can speak with students.”

Algonguin College (sent by Phil Gaudreau, communications officer)

“We are generally supportive of candidates visiting and would simply encourage they to reach out to us in advance.”

It’s not just university or college residences that are tricky for candidates to access.

Last week, Kitchissippi incumbent Katherine Hobbs told my colleague David Reevely that part of the reason she accepted an invitation to attend a meet-and-greet at a new condo building, which was organized by a prominent developer, was because she wanted an opportunity to get into the building.

About half of Kitchissippi’s residents live in condos and apartments, and, as David wrote: “Politicians have a legal right to go door to door in those buildings but it’s devilishly hard to get in.”

Case in point: I’ve lived in two controlled-entry apartment buildings in Hintonburg since July 2010. In that time, there have been five elections — two provincial, two municipal (counting this one) and one federal. Only one candidate has ever knocked on my door (I wasn’t home at the time, but he left his brochure).

Winning College ward’s council seat might not be likely, but candidate Craig MacAulay told an all-candidates meeting Thursday night that he’s trying to liven things up a bit.

“We know Rick (Chiarelli) is going to win. So I’m trying to make this election more interesting,” said MacAulay, who received 1.49 per cent of the vote in the last election, and has pledged not to spend anything on his campaign.

MacAulay, who walked amongst the crowd of about 50 people each time he answered a question and wore a sign advertising his website, was responding to a question about voter apathy.

Chiarelli, the only candidate not at the debate, was first elected to Ottawa city council in 2000 and before that was a councillor and trustee in the former city of Nepean. Chiarelli said the event was planned after he’d confirmed his attendance at an Ecology Ottawa event.

As well as MacAulay, candidates Guy Annable and Scott Andrew McLarens answered questions from the audience including ones about budget priorities, snow clearing and bus passes.

Annable, who asked people in the audience to help him distribute flyers, said he was prompted to run because of the recent Orgaworld audit. “I know where the dead bodies are at city hall, I know all about Orgaworld. We all know about Orgaworld and we deserve better,” said Annable.

His his top priorities for the ward are business revitalization of Bells Corners retail area and building affordable student housing near Algonquin College through a public-private partnership strategy.

McLarens, who recently graduated from Carleton University, said he’s been frustrating by some of the city’s recent big decisions, like waste management, and building LRT downtown before taking it to the suburbs.

“I came out of school at a perfect time to just jump in,” he said.

For more municipal election coverage, visit http://ottawacitizen.com/tag/ottawa-votes 

cmills@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/CarysMills

Long-time politician Rick Chiarelli faces three challengers in the city council race to represent College ward in Ottawa’s west end.

Chiarelli was first elected to Ottawa city council in 2000 and before that was a councillor and trustee in the former city of Nepean. He was the only candidate not at a College ward all-candidates meeting last week, which had about 50 people in attendance, because he said he had already committed to another event.

Candidate Craig MacAulay, who received 1.49 per cent of the vote in the 2010 election, said at the meeting that he anticipates the re-election of Chiarelli, who received 65.54 per cent of the vote in the last election. “I’m trying to make this election more interesting,” said MacAulay, a former teacher, who wants ranked choice voting and to stop corporate donations to candidates.

There are two other candidates in College ward, which in 2012 the city estimated had a population of 53,300, making it Ottawa’s largest ward by population.

Guy Annable, who has worked in wireless communications and more recently driven a truck, is on the property owners slate and wants more business brought to Bells Corners, as well as affordable student housing near Algonquin College. Candidate Scott Andrew McLarens, a recent graduate of Carleton University, is unsatisfied with garbage and transit decisions.

Here’s what the candidates said are most important issues for College ward, which is bounded by Hwy. 417 to the north, Lime Kiln Trail to the south, Eagleson Road to the west and Clyde Avenue and Merivale Road to the east. (Candidate responses have been edited and condensed.)

Guy Annable says he knows ‘where the dead bodies are at city hall.’

Guy Annable

Issue 1: Business revitalization of Bells Corners retail area, located along Richmond and Robertson Road

Issue 2: Developing a 3P strategy to build affordable student housing at Woodroffe and Baseline or Meadowlands area on city lands to accommodate Algonquin College Students. I do not agree with infringing or placing an additional licensing burden on property owners who wish to rent their properties to students trying to seek affordable housing as the incumbent is suggesting. How do you encourage more affordable housing by placing additional licensing and tax burdens on property owners that wish to satisfy this demand? I completely fail to understand this strategy that is currently under consideration by the incumbent and further study by the City By-law Department.

Coun. Rick Chiarelli

Rick Chiarelli

Issue 1: Illegal rooming house conversions and the noise and property standards violations that accompany them. Residents do not want College Ward to become the next Sandy Hill. In Bel Air, City View, Ryan Farm, Crestview and Centrepointe, that is the issue that has galvanized the largest number of residents to attend public meetings, write, phone and message me…  Most recently I have used my experience to assist two newer members of Council in tackling conversion concerns in their Wards and they have supported my communities’ efforts to get City Hall to explore new rules to enable access to rental units to ensure safety and to determine whether suspect buildings are, in fact, illegal rooming houses. City Council agreed and staff have now been directed to assess the tools adopted by other municipalities.

Issue 2: The protection of our neighbourhoods against over-intensification and inappropriate rezonings and heights. Using my experience, I have produced better outcomes for my residents than what we have seen across much of the City… I am very proud to have gained significant height reductions on behalf of the Centrepointe community, staving off two buildings of over 20 storeys.

College ward candidate Craig MacAulay.

Craig MacAulay

Issue 1: The need for democratic reform — we’ll NEVER realize our potential as a city without fair elections, honest politicians and an end to corruption. Fair elections: 1) politicians should NOT be allowed to finance their campaigns with cash from corporations, unions and special interests 2) politicians should NOT campaign or reward their friends with taxpayer funds 3) a small simple change that would make Ottawa’s elections fair and friendly — Ranked Choice Voting.

Issue 2: Many of the community associations in College Ward are little more than branch plants of the councillor’s office … Once they are transparent and accountable we will be in a better position to find positive solutions to College Ward’s many problems.

College ward candidate Scott Andrew McLarens.

Scott Andrew McLarens

Issue 1: Waste. People are fed up with the cost of biweekly garbage pick up. Moreover, we need to look at more sustainable solutions of waste management.

Issue 2: Transit. From Algonquin students negotiating a UPass to professionals avoiding rush hour, College Ward benefits not at all from the LRT for quite some time and therefore very much needs the bus.

For more on the election, go to ottawacitizen.com/tag/ottawa-votes.

cmills@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/CarysMills

The temptation was great, but a double dose of reality was the trump card.

Ron Port, one of the cornerstones of Algonquin College since the beginning, considered extending his career one more year to make an eye-popping 50 before retiring.

But after 49 years of teaching phys-ed, coaching and serving as athletic director, he passed on that milestone for two logical reasons: Doctors found and surgically corrected an aneurysm in his brain in July 2013, and the paperwork related to his job was becoming a source of frustration.

So, with little fanfare, a healthy and fit Port, 70, retired on May 31 to concentrate on his perennial gardens, playing golf, running through his Barrhaven neighbourhood and joining his brother to assist his mother.

“After my (six-hour) surgery, I realized I had worked every day of my life with no time for myself or family,” said Port, who had the college’s renovated gymnasium named after him in 1996. “My mom’s at home and she’s 94. I was getting her groceries and doing our lawns. I was doing my job (at Algonquin). It was too much.”

During his final 30 years at Algonquin, Port served as athletic director, guiding and supporting his Thunder teams, which won 28 Ontario Colleges Athletic Association titles in men’s and women’s basketball, curling and soccer, women’s rugby and men’s volleyball. Two of those teams, the 2002 and 2006 men’s soccer squads, won Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association championships.

Then there were the 25 times Thunder teams kept Port on the edge of his seat as they reached OCAA finals, but fell one victory short. As men’s hockey coach for 12 years, Port’s teams won numerous east division titles, but couldn’t solve the provincial championship mystery, losing the final twice in sudden-death overtime.

 “What I most enjoyed about the job was being there for the students and supporting them in their sporting endeavours as well as their academics,” said the Ottawa-born Port, who started at Algonquin as a phys-ed teacher and the men’s hockey coach in 1966.

“I was hoping they weren’t just coming for sports, but to leave with something, a diploma in hand.”

Besides the renovation of the existing gym, Port also oversaw the creation of a 20,000-square-foot fitness venue, and the installation of the first artificial turf field and removable dome for a Canadian community college.

Port also was on the OCAA executive for eight years, including serving as president from 1997-99. Besides coaching hockey and serving as division and league convenor, he also coached the curling, golf and badminton teams, which now are defunct.

“It was all about the student-athletes, the people I met and the lives touched. I couldn’t have had a better career,” said Port, who tipped his hat to former Algonquin basketball coach Bob O’Billovich and past athletic director Hal Wilson for their mentorship.

Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly on Wednesdays in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.

CAPITAL SPORTS HUB

• Ottawa Fury FC will honour the Ottawa South United Force boys’ under-14 soccer team at its final North American Soccer League game Sunday at TD Place. The Force became the first Ottawa team to win the Ontario Youth Soccer League championship and the Ontario Quebec Cup in the same year. The Force defeated Brampton Youth on penalty kicks for the Ontario championship. In the two-game Ontario Quebec Cup, Ottawa South tied the opener 2-2 with Sherbrooke Spirit, but won the second match 4-2. Ryan Massoud scored three goals and Hassan Hamed added a pair. Ottawa Fury reached the girls’ under-18 OYSL final, but lost to Waterloo.
• Former Carleton University Ravens basketball star Tyson Hinz has been selected by the CIS as one of its Top Eight Academic All Canadians for 2013-14. Hinz was the OUA male academic selection and will be honoured Nov. 17 at Rideau Hall. The commerce student graduated with a grade-point average of 10.56 out of 12. Hinz, who won four CIS national titles in five years and was the CIS overall male athlete of the year in 2010-11, is playing professionally and starting for Landstede in the Dutch Basketball League.
• Ottawa teams qualified for four gold-medal finals and emerged with two national titles at the Canadian touch football championships in St. Jean, Que. A year after losing the men’s tier 3 CC final, the Ottawa Hitmen rebounded to edge Montreal Francs 21-18 for their championship. In the men’s BB final, Ottawa Black Diamond Lions downed Montreal Hitmen 21-20. The women’s tier 1 AA final was a rematch of the 2012 championship and the result was the same as Montreal Fleur De Lys defeated Ottawa Devils 21-12. The women’s tier 2 BB final saw Ottawa Pirates lose 21-7 to Montreal La Coyotes.
• Speed Skating Canada has named four Ottawa athletes to its Canadian long-track teams: Ivanie Blondin, women’s national team; Lauren McGuire, women’s development team; Vincent De Haitre, men’s development team; and Isabelle Weideman, training squad.

Ottawans will barely notice new anti-smoking regulations the Ontario government is imposing in January, since the city government has already banned nearly everything the province is restricting.

Smoking on restaurant and bar patios? Forbidden in 2012.

Smoking on sports fields and at playgrounds? Ditto. The city actually went farther than that, banning smoking on all city grounds, from the parking lot at the old Osgoode city hall to the new cobbles at Lansdowne Park.

The exception is smokers at Carleton University, who’ll have to go off campus to buy their cigarettes. That’s a third restriction the province is putting on: no tobacco sales at universities and colleges.

The University of Ottawa says it banned tobacco sales on its campus years ago. Algonquin College says the same thing. Carleton spokesman Chris Cline says no vendor overseen directly by the university sells cigarettes but small shops run by the undergraduate association and the residence council do, so they’ll have to stop.

“If we prevent youth from taking up smoking in the first place, that will mean fewer smokers and healthier Ontarians,” said associate heath minister Dipika Damerla in a written announcement. “We need to do everything we can to prevent all Ontarians from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke.”

Smoking is a known cause of cancer and other diseases. The province says Ontario’s smoking rate fell from 24.5 per cent in 2000 to 18.1 per cent last year.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely

He’s had 93 surgeries and nearly died earlier this year, but you wouldn’t know it by the beaming smile on Super Kyle’s face.

That restless grin was on full display Saturday night, as Kyle Humphrey wheeled through a set of black curtains into a surprise 25th birthday party attended by hundreds of his friends and family.

The top floor of the east-end Lone Star was packed with people all wearing the same black T-shirt. “No Such Thing As Can’t,” screened in white onto each, was the party’s theme — and has been Helene Humphrey’s lifelong message to her son.

Kyle was born with hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, and spina bifida, a condition in which the spine isn’t fully formed. He later was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, which affects the part of the brain that controls balance.

He’s been bedridden for most of the past three years (aside from rappelling down a building in his wheelchair in September for the Easter Seals Drop Zone) because of a pressure sore, forcing him to put his studies at Algonquin College on hold.

In March, Kyle got a bad infection through something called a PICC line — a type of catheter inserted through the arm that brings medicine and nutrition to the area near the heart — and things looked bad.

“While we were in the hospital, I slowly watched him die,” Helene says before her son arrives, fighting tears. “I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t understand, I just watched his body swelling up.”

She said the medical team was testing one antibiotic per hour, trying to find one that would stop the vicious infection.

She said she could hear a doctor talking on the other side of a curtain with a resident physician, saying Kyle’s organs were failing and that not much else could be done. Helene promptly let it be known how she felt about that prognosis, however, to the point that security was called on her, she said.

Eventually, she and the doctors made the decision to pump as many antibiotics into Kyle’s body as possible. They tried five drugs the next hour with no results. No change the hour after, either.

“This is not how he’s supposed to die. He’s supposed to live a long life and be miserable to me (she laughs), and get married and have children,” she remembers thinking.

Then, on the fourth attempt, as his body had swollen and kidneys shut down, something changed. Kyle started to get better. Eventually, his mom took him home and kept pumping the medications into his body.

“In Kyle’s life, there’s no such thing as can’t,” she says. As a kid, Kyle would say, “I can’t,” when she asked him to do many of the same things she asked her other two children to do — make the bed, clean up toys. She says at those times she’d sit him down and have him write out the words with a pencil.

“‘Now take your eraser and take off that yucky T,’ ” she says she would tell him. “I can!” he would say.

The black T-shirts have that same yucky T, broken in bright red, next to Kyle’s motto. It’s on the front of a matching black baseball cap he wears, which has “Super Kyle” embroidered in red on the back. It’s now a message he shares with everyone around him, including longtime friend Max Keeping, and those he mentors.

“I tend to focus on family and friends who haven’t given up on me, and who have spent their entire life helping me understand that there’s no such thing as can’t,” Kyle says.

Kyle’s health is getting better, his mother says. He’ll have yet another surgery in December, this time to close up the wound that has kept him in bed so long.

Helene says she’d never met some of the people in the party room. When she was planning the event, she just reached out to those whose lives she knew her son had touched. Kyle says it’s “really special” to see everyone in one place.

“I’m seeing more and more as the night goes on, it’s amazing,” he says.

Helene Humphrey thanks friends and family for coming to a surprise 25th birthday party for her son Kyle Humphrey at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

Kyle Humphrey greets friends and family at a surprise 25th birthday party at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

Georgina Beachamp greets Helene Humphrey, grandmother and mother of Kyle Humphrey at a surprise 25th birthday party for Kyle at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

Kyle Humphrey greets friends and family at a surprise 25th birthday party at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

Kyle Humphrey greets friends and family at a surprise 25th birthday party at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

Kyle Humphrey is greeted by his mother Helene (left) and other friends and family as he arrives to his surprise 25th birthday party at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations. (Cole Burston/Ottawa Citizen)

People wear t-shirts reading ‘No such thing as can’t” at a surprise 25th birthday party for Kyle Humphrey at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

25-year-old Kyle Humphrey (middle) is surrounded by family and friends as he poses for a photo at his surprise 25th birthday party at Lone Star bar in Ottawa on November 15, 2014. Overcoming various challenges ranging from Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and arnold chair malformation, Kyle has had upwards of 93 operations.

eloop@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter: @LoopEmma

We see the future in a rear view mirror. Like a trick shooter at a circus we stumble through life, walking backwards, sometimes slow and cautious, other times rushing, tripping and falling on our asses.

The milestones line up in a row; signposts falling away to the horizon that say “you’re getting older.”

I met Mark Anderson in 1993. Fresh from completing my first year of J-School, I was looking for a summer job in journalism.

I flipped through the Yellow Pages and made a list of local publications. I knew that to be a reporter you had to have the stones to knock on doors.

That first day I knocked on the door of  the Citizen, the Sun and the Orleans Star; got politely told to go away each time. Demoralized, I almost didn’t go out the next day, but I knew a successful reporter was persistent.

I walked through the door of the Ottawa Business News, put on a smile I didn’t feel, and asked to speak to Mark Anderson. Instead of screening me, the receptionist picked up the phone. I swallowed, trying to work some spit into my suddenly barren mouth.

He was younger than I expected for a newspaper editor: early 30s, with curly blond hair. Dressed in khakis and a button down cotton shirt, he offered a tentative smile and asked what I wanted.

“I’m a journalism student and I’m looking for summer work.”

“Let’s talk,” he said.

I showed him my campus newspaper clips, nothing remotely related to the stuff OBN covered.

He nodded judiciously then explained that although OBN didn’t have the money, he knew about a provincial program that would provide funding to businesses to hire summer students. If I was interested he’d look into it.

I didn’t visit any other publications. I didn’t need to anymore.

Sometimes you just have to go for it. Put yourself out there. Try.

That was the first lesson Mark taught me. Others came that summer, like tell your boss you don’t have your driver’s licence before borrowing his car and, later that same day, don’t ding your boss’s car. There were journalism lessons too – what facts are relevant, how to craft the story, write for your audience – but that was number one.

Sure, parents, teachers, coaches all said the same thing. But for them the lesson was theoretical. Try your best and undefined good things will happen in the undefined future.

Mark provided the definition. Moreover, he showed me I was right. Journalism is about knocking on doors and being persistent.

Over the intervening years I’ve seen Mark infrequently.

Early on, there were dinners with our wives. Later, when Mark was at Financial Post Magazine in Toronto, he put me up when I went down looking for work. My pilgrimage to the centre of the Canadian publishing universe failed but he brought me into FP to do some editorial work so I could cover the cost of my trip. After that we drifted apart.

Then in the summer of 2013 I was doing some client work in his neighbourhood and we got together for lunch. He was heavier than I remembered, older but he still had a mischievous smile and an honest-to-God twinkle in his eye. We talked about writing and family and sports – things we were passionate about. He told me about fishing and the trips he’d taken for magazine assignments and about teaching at Algonquin College, which he loved.

He didn’t tell me about Cancer.

I found out about Cancer when I read his obituary in October. He was 51.

I’ve been walking backwards, balancing the mirror over my shoulder and I’ve tripped on something unexpected. I’ve landed on my ass and it hurts.

And suddenly I feel old.

But because I’m facing backwards I see all those milestones with the clarity of hindsight. Milestones like my first real job. My first paid byline. The first friend lost before his time. And I see Mark’s first lesson, that lesson that helped me get my career off the ground, that helped me make a life for myself and my family.

Thanks, Mark.

Alex Anderson, no relation to the late Ottawa journalist Mark Anderson, is a local freelance writer and communications consultant.

Claudette Bradshaw was a no-nonsense minister from New Brunswick in the cabinets of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

She is also the mother of a young man who is now involved in a career that couldn’t be further from hers. But he is equally successful.

Nick Bradshaw is currently one of Marvel Comics’ team of Young Gun artists and is working on some of the comic giant’s biggest titles.

His elaborate drawings have been featured on titles such as the Guardians of the Galaxy, Wolverine and the X-Men. At present he is working on Wolverines, a book that has emerged since the death of the original character.

He comes by his comic book passion honestly. Bradshaw clearly remembers going with his dad to the grocery store in his hometown of Moncton when he was a kid and being attracted to Archie comics.

That early enthusiasm evolved into more classic superhero books.

“They always had the Archies next to the cash and I would go for those. At eight or nine I started wanting superhero comics. And it went from there.”

While he was collecting books, he was also drawing and he got pretty good at it — good enough to get accepted into Algonquin College’s animation program.

“I used to sit there and try to do my own comics and books as a kid. I’m sure my mother has all those old books somewhere. She thinks she’ll make a fortune on eBay.”

Nick says he considered going to Sheridan College for its highly regarded animation program, but the fact that his mother was living in Ottawa most of the year — and the fact that Algonquin was cheaper — convinced him to settle in the capital in 2000. He graduated from the two-year program and spent some time in the animation game before jumping into comics.

He certainly doesn’t regret the choice. Nor does his mother — now.

“It took right until I could bring her to my first conventions to see what it’s like, to see it’s a real job, to get her to buy that it could be a job.”

It’s funny how life can catch up with you. Bradshaw was pursuing his degree but at home he was continuing to express himself artisically.

Nick Bradshaw is living the dream.

He was a fan of the film Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness, which was created by Sam Raimi. Bradshaw was in the habit of drawing images from the film and putting them the Internet.

“I was lucky. I was a huge dork, like everybody in this industry, and I was a fan of those movies. I used to do fan art for it and I had a ton of it and I was posting on the web. It just so happened that there was a company looking to make an Army of Darkness comic book.”

The fan drawings were good enough apparently, and one day Bradshaw got a job offer from a company called Dynamic Forces of New Jersey.

“I thought it was some buddies messing with me when I got the call. Who would think? That led to more comic book jobs once I finished my run on that.

“I love that people think it’s in to be a geek now. I have been a geek since I was born in 1978. I’m one of the lifers and I’ll be a geek until I die. Today people can be comfortable in their own skin. What I like to see is people showing up at conventions who would never have dressed up in a costume before.”

Next stop was DC Comics where he worked on Danger Girl books for about two or three years. And then he made the leap to Marvel where he started by working on the Guardians of the Galaxy, followed quickly by Wolverine and the X-Men.

Now, about a decade after he left Algonquin, Bradshaw works from his home in Moncton (he returned there in 2006) where he lives with his illustrator girlfriend Danica Brine, who does children’s books and her own books.

His day begins at about 4 a.m. He produces several black and white pencil drawings which he sends to his longtime collaborator Waldon Wong, who lives in California. Wong — his “inker” — smoothes out the drawing and fills in the shadows. Once polished, the drawing is then coloured by a third person who lives in Quebec.

Bradshaw is very particular about the look of the finished product.

For example, “you need a colourist who makes your work stand out. My stuff is very detailed. Less is more.”

He does do several comic book conventions each year, including this year’s PopExpo Ottawa; the number varies, although he says this year has been busier because of the title he is working on.

For those seeking to follow in his footsteps, he has some good advice.

“You have to have a little bit of everything in your portfolio, you have got to work in games, you have to have a little bit of animation, a little bit of film, some advertisement.”

PopExpo
When: Nov. 22-23
Where: EY Centre 4899 Uplands Dr.
Tickets: ottawapopexpo.ca
Guests: John Barrowman (Torchwood), Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), Emily Kinney (The Walking Dead), Alison Mack (Smallville)

Here’s the scenario: You’re at your workplace Christmas party and there’s an open bar. You’re not at a level of inebriation where your job is on the line, but you just told Marisa in IT you think her husband’s boring, and a few minutes before that you made an off-colour joke about Ikea meatballs to your Swedish-born colleague Ingrid.

You’re embarrassed. Your departure is imminent.

You exit. You sway as you walk and your vision is blurred.

You get in your car. Bad idea.

That’s the message Ottawa police Sgt. John Kiss relayed this afternoon at Algonquin College where members of the media and students attempted roadside sobriety tests while wearing an “impairment suit.”

Weights are attached to different parts of your body, spread out in a way that throws you off balance. You wear goggles that give you double vision, and you don noise-cancelling headphones to further discombobulate your senses.

The suit simulates a level of impairment that Kiss suspects is representative of someone “well on their way to impairment.”

“It replicates very accurately what we see in the field with impaired drivers,” he said.

A Citizen reporter attempted a roadside sobriety test while wearing the suit.

The reporter failed the sobriety test miserably, according to Kiss.

And that’s exactly what Kiss had hoped to demonstrate.

“We hope it will illustrate to people how dangerous it is to be physically impaired to that stage because your coordination, your perception, and your ability to do simple physical tasks is so messed up.”

dfenton@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter: @drakefenton

Youth Futures is a program that’s part leadership development, part job training and part mentorship, a combination that aims to convince low-income and vulnerable teens that they belong in university and college. The Citizen’s Joanne Chianello and photographer James Park followed three Youth Futures participants from their acceptance into the program in early 2014, through leadership and employment training sessions, visits to post-secondary institutions, full-time summer jobs and, finally, their graduation ceremony in August. Their stories are the story of Youth Futures.

At first glance, the lives of James Sengiyalemye, Aye-Lama Bah and Marina Thomson couldn’t be more different.

James is a refugee from Burundi who is struggling to find his place in Ottawa, the city he’s called home for just one year. Aye-Lama is a solid student who, despite living in social housing with her single mother and six siblings, has plans to work at the United Nations one day. Marina suffers from depression and hasn’t been able to attend school on a daily basis for years.

If you look closer, though, you’ll find they have a lot in common. They’ve all had challenging upbringings and complicated family lives. Money is an issue. But what really connects them is not where they’ve come from, or even where they are right now. It’s where they could go, after getting a “tap on the shoulder” from the Youth Futures program.

***

It began with a photograph.

About five years ago, Aaron Burry looked at the annual group picture of the City of Ottawa’s summer students and saw a sea of white faces staring back at him.

“It didn’t reflect the makeup of the city at all,” says the city’s general manager of community and social services. “Where was everyone else?”

That realization jump-started a discussion about what keeps new Canadians from landing these resumé-boosting jobs.

On the practical side were the skills and training that many newcomers either didn’t know they needed, or couldn’t afford, or both — from first aid and CPR requirements to police checks and a professional-looking resumé.

But what these kids were missing most was an advocate.

Burry recalls how some middle-class parents “would come right into our office” demanding summer jobs for their kids. Those heavy-handed tactics didn’t necessarily work, but it drove home to Burry that some students didn’t have parents who could help them navigate the system.

“Throughout my life, there was somebody who tapped me on the shoulder and they offered me something,” says Burry.

“The thing is, with these kids, nobody’s offering it.”

So he decided to see if he could. Building on a pilot program started by two University of Ottawa professors called Youth University, Burry got the city involved by adding first aid training sessions and, in 2010, a summer employment component for the students, because “for these kids, a job isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a gotta-have.” In 2013, law firm Borden Ladner Gervais was the first private firm to offer a fully-subsidized job to a participant. Over the years, other organizations have joined the cause, chief among them Ottawa Community Housing, which helps to manage the complex partnership that sustains Youth Futures.

Today, the program runs between late February and early June and sees successful applicants aged 16 to 21 attend day-long leadership and job-training sessions. They visit universities and colleges to get a better understanding of how the institutions work, and they are virtually guaranteed a summer job.

The job is the big draw. For the 2014 program, 350 people applied for just 75 spots, although far more — as many as 250 every year — would likely qualify.

Getting In 

Being accepted into Youth Futures basically boils down to two things: the applicant has to be low-income and willing to make a major time commitment over several months.

Some apply after hearing about the program in their communities, but most are referred.

“All the guidance counsellors know us,” says Julia Faulkner, the co-ordinator for Youth Futures and its only full-time employee.

She knows all the city’s mentors, youth leaders, social workers and community agency volunteers, too.

James, Aye-Lama and Marina all found their way to the program through others. A volunteer at the Catholic Centre for Immigrants thought James would benefit from the socialization the program can provide, while the leader of the community resource centre for the Rochester Heights social housing complex where Aye-Lama lives put her onto it. Marina’s high-school supervisor snookered her into joining the program.

“He sort of mentioned it, but next thing I knew, he’d sent in an application,” Marina remembers. “I was sort of freaked out.”

Less than half make it to the interviews, which take place in early February and are key to discovering who might benefit most from the program.

“We ask them how much their parents make, and they have no idea,” says Faulkner. “Most of them don’t see themselves as low income. So during the interview we try to get to know about their lives. Where do they live? What do their parents do? Are they living with just one parent? It quickly becomes apparent to us which are the more vulnerable students.”

Perhaps none is more vulnerable than James, a soft-spoken 19-year-old who is quick to flash a smile that would melt ice.

He spent most of his childhood in an orphanage in Burundi after his parents were killed in the ethnic-based violence that’s plagued the southeastern African country for decades. In 2005, when even the orphanage became too dangerous, James says the nuns drove him and his six “brothers and sisters” — some are actually cousins — to the UN depot for displaced persons at the border of Tanzania and Malawi. They spent eight years in a refugee camp in Malawi.

He and his siblings arrived in Ottawa last year, after the federal government sponsored all seven to come to Canada. They live in a subsidized, two-bedroom apartment, although James doesn’t see that as a hardship.

“To be separated, we don’t feel good,” says James, who carries his phone number — or what he hopes is his phone number — on a scrap of paper so can always stay in touch.

Like James, Aye-Lama’s cheery disposition belies her difficult past.

Aye-Lama came to Canada as a toddler when her diplomat father was posted here, but when he was called back Guinea, her mother refused to leave because she did not want her daughters to be subject to female genital mutilation. The family bounced from shelter to shelter for a few years before landing at Rochester Heights.

Born in Guinea, Aye-Lama came to Canada as a toddler when her diplomat father was posted here in 2001. But when he was called back home by his government about five years later, Aye-Lama’s mother refused to leave.

As a girl, she had been subjected to female genital mutilation, still widely practised in Guinea, and refused to expose her daughters to that risk. In fact, Aye-Lama suffers some mild paralysis in her right arm due to birth complications caused by her mother’s mutilation.

“It’s why I’m left-handed,” the likeable 16-year-old says matter-of-factly. “I had to give up on dance and volleyball.”

The family was granted refugee status on humanitarian grounds, then bounced from shelter to shelter for a few years before landing at Rochester Heights. Her home there is furnished with remnants of her previously middle-class life, although her bedroom holds little more than a bed. She’s hoping to get a desk, although admits to often doing her homework at the library because it’s too noisy at home.

Unlike James and Aye-Lama, Marina is something of an anomaly in Youth Futures in that she’s white and her family’s Canadian roots go back generations. Still, she hasn’t had it easy.

When she was 12, her parents moved with Marina and her younger brother to a trailer in Smiths Falls. They had hoped to build a house, but her father’s health problems and other obstacles got in the way.

Two years later, her mother left. When her father couldn’t afford the trailer park fees anymore, he moved the kids and the family pets into an RV — with no electricity and no running water. Her brother went to live with their maternal grandparents in the Copeland Park area of Ottawa. Marina tried to tough it out.

Marina Thomson was diagnosed with anxiety disorder in Grade 6 and by Grade 8, was struggling with depression. It made going to school, but she’s doing better in the Supervised Alternative Learning program at St. Mark High School.

Eventually, though, she too moved in with her grandparents. “I couldn’t compete with two dogs and two cats,” says Marina in an almost monotone voice that conveys a bone-dry sense of humour.

With her family life in disarray, Marina’s mental health also suffered. In Grade 6, she was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. By Grade 8, Marina was acing math, but was struggling with depression, which both her mother and grandmother battle.

“I couldn’t get out of bed,” says Marina. “I went to Grade 9 and it was OK at the start, but then sort of tanked. Same thing in Grade 10. I start off good and then life would get crazy.”

A turning point was being assigned to the Supervised Alternative Learning program at St. Mark High School. Each week, the 17-year-old meets there with a supervisor to hand in work she’s done at home and pick up new assignments.

She’s excited about going to Youth Futures, but more nervous than the other two. After all, she has trouble getting out of bed at the best of times, so how is she going to do it on a Saturday in the middle of winter?

Staying in

The leadership sessions start in late February and almost immediately, the teens groan about having to get up early to take two — sometimes three — buses to get to the Sandy Hill Community Centre. Heavy snowfalls in March make many of them late.

Despite the grumbling, though, it becomes clear that most enjoy the weekend sessions. And why not? It’s education disguised as games and fun group exercises.

One of the early exercises in the English group is the DOPE Personality Test to give you an idea of the sort of leader you are: Dove, Owl, Peacock or Eagle. Not surprisingly, mild-mannered James is a dove, a team player who doesn’t like conflict. Marina finds that she is an owl – analytical and logical.

In one early session, the English group splits into four to draw their concepts of good and bad camp counsellors and office workers. The “bad camp staff” drawing includes a female staffer sunbathing in a bikini, which sparks a conversation about appropriate on-the-job attire. “How about a graphic T?” asks Derek McDonald, a group leader who the kids call Big Mac. Some think that would be OK, but Derek disagrees, and also rules out cut-off shorts, beer logos and low riders.

James Sengiyalemye, 19, spent most of his childhood in an orphanage in Burundi and then eight years in a refugee camp in Malawi. He and his siblings arrived in Ottawa last year, after the federal government sponsored all seven to come to Canada.

Like many teenagers, they have only a vaguely Dilbert-like notion of office work. They imagine a pen tucked into the shirt pocket, a necktie, and a briefcase large enough to be an overnight bag. Coffee figures prominently. (James insists on trying to like coffee as he’s heard “it can help you concentrate,” but to no avail.)

After a few weeks, it’s clear Youth Futures isn’t for everyone. One young man wants to attend, but gets part-time job on Saturdays, and his family needs the money. Another makes a sports team that causes a scheduling conflict. Others simply don’t show up and are replaced with students on the waiting list.

Over the course of the seven months, 11 students will drop out, so although 85 students are admitted throughout the year, only 74 graduate.

By the end of March Break, the program is wearing on even the most enthusiastic participants. While their friends spend the week sleeping in, they spend three days at St. Paul University where professors talk to them about everything from how a university works to how to apply for scholarships. That Saturday, at the youth employment centre on Catherine Street, they attend their vital resume-writing workshop.

Marina’s dad drives her to the session, where she promptly throws up in the parking lot and needs to go home. James shows up about 20 minutes late in his trademark red pants. Aye-Lama made it on time, but like most of the others, seems a bit zoned out. It’s been four consecutive days of lectures, after all.

But this is one of the most practical days in the program — providing templates for slick CVs. They deliver paper versions to their mentors for editing. (Marina says hers comes back “covered in red ink.”)

Sprinkled throughout the program are visits to local universities and Algonquin College, which serve two purposes.

The first is practical. The days are filled with information sessions to help the students demystify the entire university experience, from explaining how to apply to programs to hearing from a wide array of professors in various fields of study.

Aye-Lama is leaning toward University of Ottawa, but she’s also intrigued by Carleton University’s public affairs and policy management program. “It sounds pretty interesting,” she says. “I never even heard about that.”

Marina is blown away by Algonquin’s various mechanics-based programs. Her father’s a mechanic and she already loves working on engines — she’s been tinkering with a 1984 Honda Ascot she bought for $250.

She thinks of herself as “fidgety” and never could concentrate at school, but suddenly she can see herself at one of Algonquin’s hands-on programs.

“At times in the past couple of years, I thought I might not finish high school,” says Marina. “Now I’m going to try harder.”

The other goal of the school visits is to get students comfortable with the idea of being on a big campus.

“One of the things they see when they go to the universities and colleges is that it’s pretty diverse,” says Faulkner. “There are people of colour, women in hijabs. They can start to see themselves belonging there.”

Along with new aspirations, though, Youth Futures can deliver a dose of reality. “I had a dream to go to university,” says James. But while his English is improving immensely, he knows he struggles with writing and grammar.

“Going to college for me, it would be good. University, it’s not easy when you’re new to Canada. When English is not your first language, it is not easy.”

As May comes to an end, so do most of the Saturday leadership sessions. June is given over to studying for finals. Before they hit the books, however, students get their job placements, one of the days they’ve been looking forward to.

James — who’s never been quite convinced he’d be getting a job — will be helping out as a camp counsellor and working in the office at the Catholic Centre for Immigrants, where up until a few weeks earlier, he was a client.

When the financial assistance connected with the government’s official resettlement program ran out last month, James Sengiyaleme thought: ‘No, don’t just sit there and do nothing.’ He used his resume from Youth Futures to apply for a dishwashing job and now works at Absinthe while finishing high school.

Hands-on Marina is assigned to the maintenance crew at Ottawa Community Housing, working mainly in the Foster Farm community.

Aye-Lama is “super happy” to be assigned the sole, coveted Borden Ladner Gervais law-firm job, even though she can’t remember the name of the company.

Working it

Aye-Lama isn’t quite sure what to expect working at BLG, and she’s a bit disappointed to be assigned to the mailroom. But she recovers when she realizes that it’s law students who work with the lawyers during the summer break “and they work super long hours.”

She’s a quick study and soon her supervisor is giving her assignments with little oversight.

“I’ve prepared documents that have gone to the Supreme Court,” she says proudly.

Another life lesson? Maybe a career in private practice isn’t for her.

“I always thought I really really wanted to be a lawyer, but now I don’t know,” she says.

Aye-Lama Bah gets 80s in school and is planning to attend the University of Ottawa because she’s ‘not quite ready to leave home just yet.’ Her experience in the program made landing a part-time job easier too.

“She’s a very enthusiastic person and I was impressed by a few things,” says BLG’s managing partner Marc Jolicoeur. “Her French and English are equally good, which is absolutely fantastic. But while she’d definitely benefit from a law degree, she’s really more interested in public policy than working in a law firm.”

The partner says he’s happy if the firm has been able to help Aye-Lama cross one possibility off her list.

James is transformed by his job at the Catholic Centre for Immigrants. Walking up Elgin Street leading a group of younger teens on an outing, the reserved young man looks and sounds like a leader. He keeps kids from straying off while simultaneously answering questions from others.

Jody Beeching, one of the centre’s youth program co-ordinators who has known James since his arrival in Canada, isn’t surprised.

“He’s someone who’s had to handle a lot of responsibility at a young age,” Beeching says. “He’s got a great work ethic.”

James quickly establishes a rapport with younger students who, like him, are recent immigrants. “People feel good to be around him,” says Beeching.

Unexpectedly, James also becomes the centre’s de facto interpreter. Because he speaks Swahili he’s called on to help communicate with new immigrants from East African countries where the language is common. The experience has James thinking he’d like to be a social worker one day.

Marina’s summer job does not go as smoothly.

One week in July, her mother was visiting Ottawa from her home in Perth and was out longer than expected. This set off panic and anxiety in Marina, which she recognizes “sounds like an overreaction to most people.”

Marina didn’t show up for work, and didn’t call in to explain.

“I didn’t have the phone number for my supervisor, which was stupid.” Her mentor Hodan Jaamac, tracked Marina down, a key responsibility of all the mentors. (“Whenever someone doesn’t show, we’re right on it,” says Faulkner.)

“Hodan called and I cried for bit,” Marina says. “And then I got my shit together.”

Marina didn’t just weather the crisis, but rebounded and went on to enjoy the company of her co-workers and the tenants their maintenance team served.

“One woman came to thank me for painting over the graffiti, which was really nice,” says Marina. “I learned how such a small thing can make a big difference to someone.”

Heading into the future

A tap on the shoulder often isn’t a dramatic gesture, and so it is with Youth Futures. None of the participants’ lives have been magically turned around by the program — there are no fairy-tale endings here.

But it’s obvious that Youth Futures has made a real difference in what they see themselves doing in the future.

Aye-Lama began as the most promising of the three and her future still seems the most secure. She gets 80s in school, and already had an idea she wanted to go to university —Youth Futures has strengthened that resolve.

Although she was described as “somewhat shy” back in February, she was able to step in at the 11^th hour during a Youth Futures barbecue at the end of May when one of the student speakers didn’t show up.

“Being in this program has made going to post-secondary school less intimidating,” she told the crowd of 100.

Related

• Youth Futures Primer
• Youth Futures - Expanding the program

Now in Grade 12, Aye-Lama is preparing, like her friends, to apply to university. While “everyone is freaking,” she’s able to answer all their questions and planning to attend the University of Ottawa because she’s “not quite ready to leave home just yet.”

She has her pick of part-time jobs, too. “When people see you worked at a law firm, they notice that,” says Aye-Lama. She’s working two shifts a week at The Face Shop, giving her  spending money she wouldn’t have otherwise. (She still hasn’t bought a desk.)

Marina is also working these days, but as part of a high-school co-op program at a stained-glass firm.

She’s told her boss about her health issues, and this time she has her supervisor’s contact info. She’s made friends with former co-op students who have landed permanent positions in the shop.

“I’m just a social butterfly now,” she says wryly.

Marina Thompson is now working as part of a high-school co-op program at a stained-glass firm and is planing to earn small-engine repair and motorcycle restoration certificates at Algonquin. Looking even further down the road, she wants to get into Carleton’s industrial design program.

But Marina has become more social in the past several months, if still on the quiet side. She surprised everyone at the graduation ceremony by bringing a homemade cheesecake — it was gone in a flash — and by presenting a number of people, including program co-ordinator Julia Faulkner, with beautiful wooden pens that she made.

“She had me choked up when she gave me the pen and said, ‘I just wanted to thank you for everything,’” remembers Faulkner. “When someone doesn’t say much, a single line can be very powerful.”

Marina is now planing to earn small-engine repair and motorcycle restoration certificates at Algonquin. Looking even further down the road, she wants to get into Carleton’s industrial design program. Big dreams for a girl who, a year ago, wasn’t a sure bet to finish high school.

James has come a long way since he arrived in Canada and plunged head first into the Youth Futures program, but still faces tremendous hurdles.

He’s confused sometimes. He’s not sure how much longer he’ll have to attend Adult High School before he can apply to college. Heartbreakingly, he missed the Youth Futures graduation ceremony at the end of August because he was mixed up about the day.

“I was so disappointed yesterday because I did not check my calendar … I’m regretting now and confused,” James emailed at the time.

But progress for him is measured in small steps.

He has gone from carrying his phone number on a scrap of paper to having his own cellphone. He has learned to navigate the city on OC Transpo. At school, he’s made a like-minded friend — a social breakthrough for a newcomer who disapproves of drinking and smoking.

But even for someone with as many challenges as James, Youth Futures has provided some useful tools.

Last month, the financial assistance connected with the government’s official resettlement program ran out. Although his younger siblings qualify for financial help, James needed to get a job — but he still wanted to earn his high-school equivalency.

“I thought, ‘No, don’t just sit there and do nothing’,” says James. “So I look on Kijiji and there is a note for a dishwasher, to be part of a team. So I apply online with my resume from Youth Futures.”

The next day, he was called in for an interview at Absinthe, where he not only secured a job for himself, but also one for his cousin.

Now James works from 4 p.m till closing Wednesdays through Sundays at the Wellington West restaurant, arriving after a full day of classes. It’s a gruelling schedule, but for James, also a possible pathway to a better life.

****

In some ways, the most amazing thing about James, Aye-Lama and Marina’s stories is that they’re not that unusual, at least not in Youth Futures.

A single program can’t fix the underlying issues of poverty, and that includes Youth Futures. Indeed, it’s not even clear how successful the program is when it comes to encouraging participants to apply to university and college (although a study is underway).

But while helping low-income youth see themselves at post-secondary school is a laudable goal, it’s also not the only benefit of the program.

We can all point to a moment where we got a lucky break, even just a tiny one, from being in the right place at the right time, from knowing someone who knows someone who might be able to offer you something.

And that’s what Youth Futures is — a tiny break that introduces some of the city’s most vulnerable youth to people they likely would never have met. It’s a program that allows someone like Aye-Lama to rub shoulders with one of the most important lawyers in the city. It’s given James the wherewithal to work at one of the city’s A-list restaurants where the staff have already taken him under their wing. It tapped Marina, who wasn’t sure about finishing high school, and showed her college programs that are completely within her grasp.

These opportunities may not seem breathtaking, but that’s not how life works. Especially not for these kids. Though life hasn’t offered them much, Youth Futures has offered them a chance.

When the Cappies program came to Ottawa in 2005, few people in Canada had even heard of it.

It started modestly with 15 high schools in its first year and a year-end gala that filled nearly 900 seats in the National Arts Centre’s Theatre.

Today the Cappies celebrates its first decade in the national capital region as one of the biggest programs in North America. It routinely sees the participation of 35 or more schools and has been the catalyst for chapters in Edmonton and the Niagara region. The Gala outgrew the NAC Theatre in its second year and now fills Southam Hall every year.

Cappies, which stands for Critic and Award Program, was the brainchild of William Strauss, an American historian, playwright, and founder of the Capitol Steps political comedy troupe.

Strauss teamed up with Judy Bowns, then a Washington D.C.-area theatre and dance resource teacher. Their collaboration began in the wake of the mass shooting at Columbine high school in Colorado. The goal was to highlight, in the pages of the Washington Post newspaper, the accomplishments of students interested in writing and drama rather than athletics. Chapters followed in other states, including Ohio, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Texas and Missouri.

Ruth Dunley and Bill Strauss after the first Cappies Gala in June 2006 at the NAC.

A coincidence brought the program to Ottawa. While on a leave-of-absence, Ruth Dunley, then the Citizen’s associate editor, heard Strauss and two students speak at a conference on ways newspapers could engage younger readers. Dunley decided to pursue the idea of bringing the program to Ottawa with the Citizen’s help.

“The students told me that, for the first time, they saw people like themselves in the pages of the Washington Post,” Dunley says.

“Having edited countless stories of young people in trouble with drugs or violence, Cappies seemed to me to be a great way for us to talk about the positive things that young people were doing in their communities. When I returned to Ottawa, I pitched it to our then-editor-in-chief Scott Anderson, and with the support of several other Citizen colleagues, we took it to the school boards and crossed our fingers.”

It worked. The Boards and the Citizen joined forces with arts consultants Shelley Smith-Dale, Dale Taylor, English consultant Denise Shannon, and former OCDSB director Barrie Hammond to form the program’s first steering committee.

Hammond, the first educator Dunley approached, says the Cappies has provided Ottawa area students with the opportunity to acquire valuable skills.

“The remarkable success over the past 10 years is a great tribute to the teachers and students who embraced the concept so enthusiastically in the early years and who continue to do so today,” Hammond says.

“Involvement in the arts is linked with improvement in everything from math to critical thinking. Arts education can enhance confidence and teamwork. Dedicated arts programming in schools helps to close gaps for students. It can help students develop a sense of belonging in their school,” says Jennifer Adams, director of Education for the OCDSB, says. “The Cappies celebrates, honours and recognizes those students who take words and notes on a paper and bring them to life.”

Julian Hanlon, Ottawa Catholic School Board’s Director of Education, says the program has also provided fantastic opportunities for his students and staff.

“The Cappies have given high school theatre the profile it has long deserved,” he says.  “All the students involved, not just the actors, have an opportunity to shine.”

Through the years, the Cappies expanded rapidly and grew to include schools outside the two sponsoring boards and on both sides of the Ottawa River.

Thousands of students have taken part as student critics who received their first byline in the Citizen. Many have pursued careers in writing and journalism, just as many of those who received onstage or backstage accolades have pursued studies in music, dramatic arts, costume design and technical work.

Caroline O’Neill pilots a plane alongside James Haskin as students from St. Mark High School rehearsed their Cappies play, The 39 Steps.

Caroline O’Neill, who was both a student critic and an actor at St. Mark High School, feels the program had a positive impact on her career path.

“I am currently in my third year of journalism at Carleton University. Cappies gave me a taste of this vast, fast-paced world where one conversation can lead to an interesting interview or a brand new story.”

James Gilchrist is in second year at Algonquin College. He says the program was special.

“Cappies was one of the best experiences of my high school career. It’s where I met some of the most talented people I know and some of my closest friends.”

James Gilchrist, St. Matthew Catholic High School, nominated for Male Critic, in 2013.

Thirty-eight schools are participating in Cappies this year with 36 performances of plays and musicals. The opening show of the 10th season will be There’s No Place Like Home at St. Patrick’s High School on Dec. 10.

Katie Lewis-Prieur, the current Program Director for Canada’s Capital Cappies, is looking forward to seeing many of the upcoming shows and hearing the discussions in the critics’ rooms.

“The range of genres of shows being produced is astounding,” says Lewis-Prieur. “Schools are presenting contemporary works like The Addams Family: The Musical, which was on Broadway in the last few years, and Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet by Canadian Ann Marie Macdonald.  There are also the classics being put up like Arsenic and Old Lace and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  It’s one of the best entertainment values in town.”

Related

• Cappies 2014-15 play Synopses

A veteran drama teacher who has been involved in the program since it arrived in Ottawa, Lewis-Prieur says organizers are already planning the next Gala on June 7, 2015.

“We’re so excited to be celebrating our first decade here in Ottawa.  It’s hard to believe how quickly the time has gone, but when you look at how many student critics have gone through the program and how many plays have been shared, you can see the tremendous impact that Cappies has had on celebrating high school theatre and promoting literacy.”

Do you have a favourite memory about the Cappies program or Gala? Did your participation in the Cappies set you on your career path? Tell us about your memories on stage, in the critics’ room and at the Gala.

Email Katie Lewis-Prieur at AdminCCC@cappies.org. Follow Cappies on Twitter @OttawaCappies, join our Facebook page and keep up to date at http://ottawacitizen.com/category/entertainment/cappies.

Four individuals with more than 150 years combined involvement with local athletes are recipients of lifetime achievement honours. They will be presented with their awards on Jan. 28 at the 62nd Ottawa Sports Dinner at Algonquin College.

Lee Powell will receive the Mayor’s Cup for Outstanding Contribution to Sport in Ottawa in recognition of his work with rugby in the city. Powell was a coach for 35 years, a referee for 30 years, and a playing career of 40 years, including playing in 2013 with the Bytown Blues at age 63.

The award for Sports Volunteer or Administrator goes to Ron Port who was for 30 years the athletic director at Algonquin College. College teams won 28 Ontario championships while Port was in charge.

The award for Technical Official goes to Ringette Canada Hall of Fame inductee Laura Knowles.

The Brian Kilrea Lifetime Achievement Coaching Award goes to a physical education teacher at Henry Munro Middle School, Paul ApSimon. He is credited with building the sport locally in more than 25 years as a coach. Many of his athletes have achieved Canada’s all-time best international results.

The annual banquet also honours Ottawa best athletes for 2014. The winners comes from more than 60 sports. The event also honours male and female team of the year and male and female coach of the year.

For more information about the lifetime achievement winners, tickets and the event itself: ottawasportsawards.ca.

The First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa really put the NIMBY in NIMBYism this week when it announced it is opposing the city’s preferred western light-rail route and wants the planned station for the corner of Cleary Avenue and Richmond Road in Westboro.

But the church would still like a station close enough for its members to walk to. Just not, you know, in its own backyard.

Wow.

This is the latest salvo in what has become the most controversial section of Phase 2 of LRT, a far-reaching $3-billion plan to extend rail east, west, south and to Algonquin College. Of the 35 kilometres of track the city wants to lay between 2018 and 2023, none has caused as many headaches as those needed to connect Dominion to Lincoln Fields station.

That’s to be expected. Getting a train through that part of town involves travelling through National Capital Commission land and the built-up neighbourhood of Westboro. That property owners are concerned about exactly where and how the train is routed is completely understandable.

And the Unitarian Congregation has some very valid concerns. The latest route — over which the city is still arguing with the NCC — would have light-rail trains running three or four metres below the church’s property, under what is now surface parking. The church has publicly stated that this is “unacceptable.”

As first reported by the Citizen’s Matthew Pearson, the church worries about the disruption that would be caused by as much as two years of construction not just for congregation members, but for those in the seniors residence and in the daycare, both of which are located on the Unitarian Congregation’s property. And the church would lose its parking spaces during the construction.

Furthermore, it’s possible the church won’t be able to develop its property directly over the light rail tunnel the way it might want. This is somewhat debatable as, according to city officials, they’d still be able to build a four-to-six-storey building, but they could forget about any plans to build underground parking.

These are completely legitimate concerns that the city must address, including compensating the Unitarian Congregation for any loss of value to their land.

But some of the Unitarians’ other complaints are hard to swallow.

There will be too much vibration? Perhaps during the construction that will be an issue, but shouldn’t be once the tunnel is completed as it doesn’t run under any of the existing buildings, including the daycare. Also, the train will be moving quite slowly — hence causing little vibration anyway — as it will have just left Cleary Station when it’s travelling under the church property.

The Cleary Station will lead to too much traffic and illegal parking from park-n-riders? This station is what’s known as a “slip station” as opposed to a major hub such as Tunney’s Pasture or Lincoln Fields. It’s meant to serve the local neighbourhoods and is unlikely to be a major drop-off centre. Illegal parking can be dissuaded through that old standby, parking tickets. As for the area becoming busier, well, that’s too bad. More people is what we want from intensification, and more people taking transit is what we want in a sustainable society.

Building this light-rail system — which most people claim they want — isn’t easy. It’s going to be disruptive and it’s going to be expensive. Very expensive. The federal government hasn’t even come close to saying it’s on board with chipping in the one-third, or $1 billion, of the costs the city wants it to. And every time a group, whether it’s the NCC or the Unitarian Congregation or a well-meaning community member, suggests rerouting the train under another field or street, it adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost.

That doesn’t mean the city’s preferred route is the one we’re going to end up with. The city and the NCC were having a pretty public spat about running the train above ground a mere 500 metres along the south side of the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. So discussions over the western LRT route are nowhere near finished.

But the light-rail system doesn’t just need money — it needs support from us, and a willingness to compromise. Few transit systems are perfect, and our LRT won’t be either, whether it’s a station that should have been here rather than there, or trees saved along the parkway versus trees on the Byron linear park. It will not be possible to please everyone.

And if progressive folks such as those at Unitarian Congregation talk down having light rail in their backyard, then what hope do we have of getting this thing built?

jchianello@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/jchianello

All aboard, Algonquin

Algonquin College’s universal bus pass program, which students recently voted in favour of in a referendum, has been approved by council for the 2015-16 academic year and beyond.

The program will be available to full-time students at participating post-secondary institutions for a fee of $192.70 per four-month semester for the 2015-16 year, and subject to yearly fee increases of no more than 2.5 per cent.

Full-time Algonquin students enrolled in study over the spring/summer semester (May 1 to August 31) are also eligible, the city says, noting this arrangement might also interest to full-time students and the administrations.

Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and Saint Paul University have already implemented the U-Pass program.

An artist’s rendering of proposed alterations to the Charles Billings House in Alta Vista. The portion outlined in red is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. (Barry J. Hobin and Associates Architects),

Renos OK’d at historic Charles Billing House

Council has has approved an application to alter the historic Charles Billings House in Alta Vista.

The home at 187 Billings Ave. is considered a rare example in Ottawa of the Ontario cottage style, which was popular from the 1830s to the 1870s.

The current owner wants to remove about 20 per cent of the designated heritage building — which will result in the loss of a window on the front façade and affect the symmetry — in order to construct a large addition.

The home is located a few blocks southwest of the Billings Estate on Cabot Street, which was home to five generations of the Billings family and now is a museum.

Council approved demolition of the fire-ravaged Howick house.

Demolition of fire-ravaged Rockcliffe heritage home approved

Council also approved the demolition of a Rockcliffe Park heritage home destroyed by fire last month.

A blaze ripped through 140 Howick St. on Dec. 15, causing an estimated $400,000 in damage to the home, which was undergoing renovations at the time.

Following the advice of a forensic engineering firm, the owners asked to demolish the remaining portion of the house and proceed with construction of a new house according to a plan approved by city council in June.

mpearson@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/mpearson78

In April 2009, I spent hours in a small, dark sound booth with Mark Valcour, a diminutive man with a bushy moustache and the best ears around.

I was weeks away from completing my master of journalism at Carleton University and Valcour was the school’s audio technician. Among his tasks was helping novices like me turn the sounds of seagulls and container ships, which I’d collected in Prince Rupert, B.C., into a meaningful and pleasant-sounding radio documentary; an audio thesis intended to fulfil one final obligation before graduation.

Valcour was patient and kind, if a bit quirky. He had particular sayings that were all his own and, I later learned, neatly organized collections of Bic lighters, stuffed animals and Lego.

But he was persistent, too, and had the most exacting professional standards. Sometimes those standards seemed almost too exacting and I wanted to run from that dimly lit sound booth screaming in frustration, “Enough! It’s good enough!”

But Valcour never settled for “good enough.” And that’s what made him so good.

—————

Mark Valcour was born in Kemptville on July 5, 1954, and grew up in nearby Prescott, the third eldest in a blended family with six children.

He loved to fish and was mad about cars, especially giant Chryslers, the ones with trunks large enough to fit a modern compact car.

There were early signs he might be a perfectionist, especially after his mother, Ruth Gilmer, taught him how to properly make a bed, complete with hospital corners. It was a skill he quickly mastered and never forgot.

He later studied mechanical engineering at Carleton University but abandoned it in favour of his true love: sound engineering.

Valcour began volunteering at CKCU — Carleton’s campus radio station — in August 1979 and within a year was production manager, making him responsible for the station’s sound.

He went on to teach part-time in Algonquin College’s radio program and, in 1986, was hired full-time by Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication.

Because his job involved teaching specific technical skills such as collecting, editing and mixing sound files, as well as coaching rookie radio hosts on the finer points of voice performance, Valcour worked one-on-one at some point with virtually every Carleton student who ever entered the school’s radio room.

Probably close to 3,500 students in all, his colleagues estimate.

“You can hear his legacy broadcasting from stations across Canada,” was how one former student put it.

Mary McGuire joined Carleton’s faculty in 1990, and never taught a radio class without Valcour.

Although he worked with a variety of other instructors over the years — who among them had a variety of teaching styles and demands — Valcour remained affable, flexible and in love with his job, she said.

“That always shone through. When you get to work closely with somebody who loves their job, it rubs off on you,” McGuire said.

Since his death, McGuire says she’s heard from countless grads now working in the field, who say they hear Valcour’s voice in their head when they are collecting and editing sound files.

He did, after all, rely on some pretty unique turns of phrase to underscore his lessons.

“Make sure you mic yourself as well as your interview subject or else the tape will sound like Bambi interviewing Godzilla,” he’d tell students.

“It’s sound, not noise,” he’d remind them.

And he’d go on, sometimes at length, about the wonders of what he called “gain massage,” which involves adjusting the levels to make a particular file sound more even and free of “spikeys” (his word for sharp sounds).

Valcour was, for many students, the first encounter with someone who appreciated the power of good audio.

“It was about journalism, but it was also about the quality of the sound, and that is still the thing I appreciate about radio is how close it gets you,” said CBC national reporter Rosemary Barton. “And that’s what he was trying to teach.”

Valcour may have been tough at times, but it was excellent preparation for working in a demanding industry and understanding the important role that technicians like him play in the finished product, she said.

Valcour’s career spanned a period of unprecedented change in broadcasting. Where once he taught students to splice together clips using razor blades and white tape, he later made the jump to editing and mixing all sound files digitally. Along the way, he also administered first aid to the unlucky ones who sliced open their fingers splicing tape and advised the school on how best to set up its shiny new, state-of-the-art studio two summers ago.

But his work didn’t end at Carleton or Algonquin.

He did sound for countless bands and at numerous bars across the city, including the ByWard Market’s Dominion Tavern. Some days, he’d set up the equipment in the afternoon, go teach a three-hour class and then race back to the club in time for sound check.

Allan Pearce, the Dominion’s owner, said Valcour’s patience and expertise as a sound guy quickly won him the respect of musicians.

“The Dom” was one of his second homes, so perhaps it was no surprise that he chose it as the location for his 60^th birthday party last summer. While Valcour’s friends and colleagues drank beer, the Bushpilots played a set.

“It was one of the first times he sat back and didn’t do the sound,” Pearce recalled.

Sitting still for long just wasn’t in Valcour’s nature. Despite a heavy teaching load, a monthly radio show on CKCU and the regular sound gigs, he was always willing to help a friend in need.

Most busy people make time for others, but Valcour had time for others, says his younger brother, Mike. And that distinction is important. He kept up weekly dinners with his mother and another friend, and had special weekends set aside to go fishing with old friends.

McGuire, meanwhile, recalls a time when Valcour recruited a buddy, collected supplies at three hardware stores and spent the good part of a weekend devising a scheme to prevent raccoons from loitering on her back deck. His plan worked, but all he would accept in exchange was a home-cooked meal.

“He was a guy who just wanted to help people out, and if he could, he would,” she said.

Generous as he was with his time, McGuire says Valcour often boasted that part of his secret was checking email infrequently. “If the rest of us checked our email once a month, we’d have a lot more time for our friends, too,” she said.

Although he was born with a muscular congenital disorder that curved his lower spine and stiffened both his gait and his hands, Valcour’s brother, Mike, said he never let the condition slow him down.

“I was born with all my problems and I’ve had none since,” was how Valcour himself often put it.

—————

A new school term was just getting underway at Carleton in early January when Valcour didn’t show up for work one day and wasn’t answering texts. This was quite unusual, so the school contacted his family.

Paul Valcour, Mark’s eldest brother, and two of Mark’s friends drove up to his tidy home in Cantley, north of Ottawa. There, they found Valcour lying on the couch, looking peaceful. He had died in his sleep.

The Dominion Tavern will host a memorial concert for Mark Valcour on Sat., Feb. 7.

mpearson@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/mpearson78