Thank you to our wonderful community for their donations to make Christmas possible at Blake House! 

As many of you may have heard, our Adrian Benjamin, Multifaith Housing Initiative’s  Community Engagement Manger, was left in shock when he opened the back of his vehicle to discover all the Blake House tenants’ donated Christmas gifts had been stolen while parked overnight at his home in Barrhaven. 

The would-be criminal made off with toys donated by The Ottawa Police Service and Toy Mountain (value unknown), gift cards to local grocery stores generously donated by MacKay United Church (valued at $600.00), and 2023 calendars donated by members of the Barrhaven United Church. 

We are thrilled to announce that through assistance from the community, we replaced all of the Christmas gifts for the children and were able to increase the value of the gift cards for each household. 

Santa's sleigh was once again flying as we hand-delivered the gifts on Friday January 6th 2023. We cannot thank the community enough for their generous donations that made this Grinch story a happy ending. 

Here are a few photos we snapped in the process. 

This #ThankYouThursday, we’d like to show our appreciation to the Canadian Forces Support Group Ottawa-Gatineau - PSP Military Housing, for donating a (literal!) truckload of household goods to MHI tenants! Volunteer residents at The Haven and Veterans’ House: the Andy Carswell Building helped move 80+ appliances, pieces of furniture, home technology and other items, which were passed on to the folks who live with us. Thanks to everyone who made this happen! 

We are reaching out to you all regarding the ongoing protest-turned-occupation in downtown Ottawa.

As many of you are aware, MHI operates five rental housing sites – one residence for formerly homeless veterans (Veterans’ House: the Andy Carswell Building), plus four communities for low-income families/individuals.

Our two smallest communities are located downtown within the area impacted by demonstration-related activities. However, our communities happen to be outside the radius of where the protests are intensely concentrated at the present time. MHI volunteers have reached out to our residents living at the two properties in question. The volunteers continue to be available to connect tenants to support services in the community as required, or lend a listening ear to residents who’d simply like someone to talk to. MHI’s housing department is available to support tenants over the phone as well.

Our heart goes out to everyone negatively impacted by the demonstrations. While we support Canadians’ right to demonstrate, we condemn all hateful, unlawful, and/or disrespectful activity that has taken place during the protests. MHI is a charity that works to end homelessness, including veterans’ homelessness. We are also an organization whose voting members are a coalition of 70+ Ottawa-area faith groups, including Baha’i, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Unitarian congregations. As such, our organization specifically condemns the desecration of the National War Memorial and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the harassment of our sector partners the Shepherds of Good Hope, and the flying of Confederate flags and swastikas downtown. We also categorically condemn the white supremacist and Islamophobic comments made in the past by some members of the convoy leadership. The failure of convoy leaders to explicitly denounce and expel bigots from their own inner circle does little to inspire confidence that the ongoing occupation is exclusively about vaccine mandates.

To our supporters, especially those targeted by this harmful rhetoric: We are here for you, and we care.

We will keep you all updated on the situation from our vantage point as it unfolds.

Suzanne Le
MHI Executive Director

Friends, never doubt dreams can come true. MHI is so excited to announce our latest affordable housing project, in partnership with socially and environmentally focused developer Dream. Our proposal has been selected by the National Capital Commission as part of the development of Lebreton Flats Library Parcel! This project will build 601 new residential rental units, of which 31% will be accessible and 41% will be affordable housing (117 of the affordable units will be owned by Dream and 130 will be owned by MHI). Learn more at the NCC website below!

Welcome to the official blog of Multifaith Housing Initiative, an Ottawa-based affordable housing charity! We are releasing this blog on January 20, 2022. Expect more content in the future including news pieces, tenant profiles, and info about MHI events and fundraisers, and more!