[homeles_ot-l] Mary-Martha Hale - one of CanWest's 10 Canadians to watch in 2008

Thu Jan 10 13:20:44 EST 2008

Hello everyone!

It’s very rewarding when important, and let’s face it, challenging and hard
work, is acknowledged. In December, Mary-Martha Hale, the ATEH Chair for the
past two years, was selected by the CanWest newspaper chain as one of 10
Canadians to watch in 2008. The article is starting to appear (text & links
follow below).

This is quite an acknowledgment of Mary-Martha’s personal commitment to
ending homelessness and a welcome recognition of this devastating crisis and
the work of the Alliance to End Homelessness and all of our members’ efforts
on behalf of people who are homeless or at risk of it in our community.

The series was described as “As the new year begins, CanWest News Service
reporters across the country profiled Canadians who appear poised to come
into their own.” So far, the article has appeared twice, in slightly
different versions, in the Times Colonist in Victoria, which used only 8 of
the 10 people (Dec. 30th) and in the Vancouver Sun (Jan 8th).  

Congratulations from all of us Mary-Martha!

Lynne Browne 
Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness 
147 Besserer Street, Ottawa ON  K1N 6A7 
613-241-7913 x 205, lbrowne at ysb.on.ca 
www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca 

canada, canadian search engine, free email, canada news

Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007

HYPERLINK
"http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/monitor/story.html?id=a38a
a681-9ae9-4391-b963-4030e5a48d99"http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist
/news/monitor/story.html?id=a38aa681-9ae9-4391-b963-4030e5a48d99 

Eight to watch in 2008

Jack Aubry

CanWest News Service

Sunday, December 30, 2007

OTTAWA -- Although she points out that she's not a nun or particularly
"holy," Canada's version of Mother Teresa can be seen in action on the front
lines of the country's poor and homeless in the shadows of the nearby
Parliament Buildings.

Mary-Martha Hale is a 53-year-old social worker for the Anglican Diocese's
Centre 454 -- a drop-in centre in the toughest part of the nation's capital
where the disenfranchised go during the day for counselling and training.
She has a tiny broom closet of an office there, where she administers the
centre while taking on the powers-that-be to improve the lot of the people
she serves.

Along with being the centre's director, Hale is also the chairwoman of the
innovative Alliance to End Homelessness that has come up with ideas so
successful in Ottawa that they are being imported by other cities in Canada.

"I guess my ideas have come from the wealth of personal experience I've had
across Canada. The systems that are created supposedly to help people, often
do not help people," Hale said.

"So innovations come out of trying to help people live as fully in society
as they can."

Consider the following successful innovations that are helping the homeless
-- a crisis situation that affects an estimated one per cent of the Canadian
population:

* Red-tape cutting pilot project: A provincial program for the disabled
initially had a high rejection rate for applicants before Hale started
working with them on their files. She says the project has now had a 99 per
cent success rate.

* Annual civic report cards on homelessness: Other cities are looking at
adopting the strategy of putting out similar reports that grade how the
community responds to the issue. Hale says the report card, which was
created by the Alliance to End Homelessness in 2004, has drawn significant
attention to the issue from the media and politicians.

* Leadership training program: Another pilot project garnering interest
across North America is a 20-week training program to prepare people who
have experienced homelessness to sit as board members of social agencies.

Hale, who is the mother of two grown children, is drawing from considerable
personal experience to help shape these innovations. The wife of a
geologist, Hale lived and worked between 1978 and 1994 in Quebec, Ontario,
Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

She has worked with Deer Lodge Veteran's Hospital in Winnipeg; the YWCA in
downtown Montreal; Transition House, a shelter for abused women in Corner
Brook, N.L.; another women's shelter in Kentville, N.S.; and the AIDS
Committee of Ottawa.

With two degrees in social work and a science degree in kinesiology, she was
recently the recipient of the Social Planning Council of Ottawa's Defender
of the Public Good Award.

Veteran social worker Andrew Cheam said despite her rise through the
administrative chain, Hale has resisted removing herself to a safe office
setting.

"She's right on the front lines -- she's not sitting in some ivory tower.
Mary-Martha still keeps her hand in on the work here even though she is busy
as can be with administrative stuff and paying the bills. It keeps it real
for everyone," said Cheam.

A charismatic communicator, Hale shrugs off suggestions about the sacrifices
she has made for her work and instead credits her co-workers and the
Alliance for making it so rewarding and effective. She says she has only
felt nervous once in the past decade, explaining simply that she does not
put herself in "danger's way."

Described by one colleague as a "slow talker," Hale cites a songwriter she
met at a retreat a number of years ago for her measured approach: "We have
so much to do, so we must go slow." But she doesn't miss a beat, adding that
the growing number of homeless in Canada can no longer wait for politicians
to make their situation a priority for the country.

The Vancouver Sun 2008

HYPERLINK
"http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=452e780b-4890-41d4-98
9e-d543ed6a9186"http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=452e78
0b-4890-41d4-989e-d543ed6a9186 

Ottawa social worker fights for homeless

Jack Aubry

CanWest News Services 

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.0/1216 - Release Date: 09/01/2008
10:16 AM

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20080110/c46ca84a/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5428 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20080110/c46ca84a/attachment-0001.gif 