Siloam Mission saviour to The Madison

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This article was published 13/04/2011 (5381 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Robert Scherbain got out of Headingley jail, he needed a place to stay sober and on the straight and narrow.

“It’s decent to have a roof over my head with a safe environment,” said the 45-year-old.

As a single man on assistance getting back on his feet, hotels and rooming houses where addictions run rampant were about all he could afford.

“The rental market right now is not good. It’s tough to find decent accommodations.”

Scherbain’s probation officer helped the first-time offender — who used to write up parking tickets as a commissionaire — get into one of The Madison’s 87 rooms eight months ago.

Siloam Mission has purchased the notorious 70-year-old rooming house in Wolseley, which is about to undergo a $1.5-million renovation. The decrepit building is getting a new roof, windows, plumbing — the works, Siloam Mission’s executive director, Floyd Perras, said Tuesday.

“We’ll have housing for people coming off the streets for the next 50 years,” he said in the basement dining room of the four-storey building.

One of the unoccupied fourth-floor rooms with water damage from the leaky roof was on display for the media to get an idea of the work that lies ahead. Siloam will renovate the supportive living units one floor at a time. As they go, they will put in steel bed frames and vinyl mattresses to keep the scourge of bedbugs out. The building will be fully accessible for those with mobility issues.

The Christian organization purchased the building for $300,000 and took possession April 1. The Madison will have an annual budget of $600,000, with Siloam Mission kicking in $144,000 the first year. Funding partners and agencies helping will be announced next month, said Perras.

Some of the people who seek shelter at Siloam’s facility for the homeless in the Exchange District have rooms in downtown flophouses where they don’t feel safe or at home, he said. The Madison will be both safe and homey with supportive living for the residents, said Perras.

“It’ll be good, clean, safe, dry housing for people… and help them protect their recovery.”

That’s good news for Scherbain.

“I’ve been clean and sober for three years,” he said. “I want to stay on that path.”

His bed is neatly made with a fleece wolf-print blanket. There is a sink in his room, which is clean and tiny but bigger than the one he occupied in Headingley. He lives on the third floor, where the two men’s toilets are out of service so all the third-floor residents use the one for ladies, a man across the hall said. There is a single tub and shower in the humid, well-worn bathroom.

Meals are provided, cafeteria style. Tuesday’s menu offered oatmeal for breakfast with soup, french toast and garlic sausage for lunch and a hot beef sandwich, veggies and dessert for supper.

Unlike the menu, the comings and goings at The Madison have been anything but mundane over the years. A resident was shot by police there four years ago after he fatally stabbed another Madison inhabitant. Three years ago, a raid was conducted because of a suspected meth lab. In 2009, a woman was beaten to death in her room.

Hearing that Siloam was taking over The Madison was good news, neighbours said Tuesday.

“I think that’s a positive thing that they’re making a more positive atmosphere for the people living there,” said 17-year-old Kevin Bellemare, who lives a few houses away on Evanson Street.

“It’ll be good for everybody,” said Debbie Seburn, who bought a home a couple of doors down from The Madison three years ago.

Several of the homes nearby have been renovated, including Seburn’s, and the spruced-up rooming house will benefit the neighbourhood, she said. “I think property values will go up if it’s better.”

 

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca