Trinity Community Centre aims to continue One Roof’s legacy. But without a proper kitchen, that’s a challenge.

Jonah Uhryniw loves to cook big, nutritious meals for people, and he likes it best when he can give those meals away for free.

Uhryniw has hopped between various kitchen jobs in Peterborough over the past six years or so, he said.

Working as a cook at downtown restaurants, Uhryniw sometimes felt uneasy because he would see hungry people on the street outside who couldn’t afford the food he was making.

“You see all of this food … and all these people in need,” he said. “It just felt terrible.”

But last year, the cook got an opportunity to switch things up. He became the kitchen supervisor at the One Roof Community Centre, where he found himself cooking multi-course lunches for hundreds of people and giving them away for free.

The new job left Uhryniw emotionally and creatively fulfilled, he said.

“I would really try to keep cooking all day, get as much food out to people … so people have as much nutritional intake as they can,” Uhryniw said. “I put my feelings into it and people seemed to really appreciate it.”

Last fall, Uhryniw switched kitchens again. He now works at the Trinity Community Centre, which replaced One Roof as the city-funded daily drop-in after St. John’s Anglican Church decided its congregation couldn’t operate One Roof any more.

There’s just one problem. Trinity’s kitchen isn’t a commercial one, and that greatly restricts what Uhryniw can cook up.

He said that without a commercial kitchen, public health rules limit him to reheating food, making vegetable-based soups, and assembling sandwiches.

That’s a far cry from what he used to do. “At One Roof, I’d be able to do a main, a rice, a vegetable, a soup, a dessert, and all these different things,” he said. “Some days it’d be bacon mac and cheese. Then, I’d do a rack of lamb some days.”

Not so anymore.

“We’ve been doing the best with what we have,” Uhryniw said. “But trying to meet a fairly big demand with the lack of a fully equipped kitchen … has been tricky.”

Kitchen renovations expected to cost $250,000. City says that goes “beyond” what it funded.

The Trinity Community Centre is operated by One City Peterborough, and executive director Christian Harvey said the goal is for the drop-in program to continue the legacy of One Roof.

In many ways, it does.

“One Roof closed, and the very next day we were open [at Trinity],” said Cheyenne Burnett, who was the floor supervisor at One Roof and now holds a similar role at Trinity.

The move was a relief for Burnett, who’d worked at One Roof for years. When she first heard in the summer that St John’s was ending the program, she was nervous that nothing would replace it, or that whatever did replace it wouldn’t “lead with love” the way she’d always aimed to do at One Roof.

Then, in September 2023, the City of Peterborough announced funding for One City to operate the Trinity Centre as a replacement for One Roof. The city is providing $900,000 per year over three years to One City to run the Trinity Centre. In addition to the drop-in, that money also funds a new winter overnight shelter at the same location.

Burnett manages the Trinity drop-in program. “I’m thrilled to be here,” she said, noting that being co-located with One City’s other programs for people experiencing poverty means she now has more resources to offer guests and more administrative support to make her job easier.

The drop-in space is currently open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekends. Its hours extend during extreme weather. Art supplies, board games, and movies are on hand to give guests something to do. And other organizations drop by to provide services like haircuts or vet checkups for pets.

The drop-in offers a safe indoor space to escape the elements. But it’s about more than that, according to Harvey. “What the program addresses is loneliness and community,” he said. “The need to have places where you feel like you belong is core.”

But food is an essential component of fostering community and belonging.

When the City of Peterborough announced the opening of the Trinity Centre in November, it stated in a press release that “light snacks will be provided at this program with the goal of developing a full meal program in the near future.”

But it’s up to One City to find the money for kitchen renovations to make that meal program possible, and the charity expects it to cost about $250,000.

The city’s communications director Brendan Wedley said a full meal program goes “beyond the core drop-in program services under the agreement” it signed with One City. But the city is supportive of One City’s efforts to develop a meal program, Wedley added.

“We’re all on the same page that a meal program is a huge need,” said One City’s outreach director Auden Palmer. “Food insecurity is something that most people can relate to.”

Palmer said One City plans to fundraise for the $250,000, but the charity doesn’t have solid plans for its fundraising campaign yet.

Until it renovates the kitchen, One City is managing by having volunteers cook off-site or by serving simple snacks and meals that are allowed under the health unit’s rules, like peanut butter and jam sandwiches, Uhryniw said.

And they’ve managed to serve something every day since opening, he said. But gone are the elaborate meals that used to draw people to the One Roof Community Centre, and guests have noticed.

Drop-in guest describes “real sense of togetherness and community” at Trinity Centre, despite drop in food quality

Gabriella Newnham has fond memories of the One Roof Community Centre. She said she first started going there during a tough period in her life.

“At the time I started going, I had lost my place to live. I was homeless,” Newnham shared. “I was very lonely and confused. And they just welcomed me with open arms immediately. No questions asked. I’ve had some real lows and really bad times, and they got me through it.”

Newnham found housing again, she said. But she continued going to One Roof to socialize, and she said she was “very distraught” when she first heard that it would be closing. “I was worried about what would happen,” she said, “especially for the people who are [homeless].”

But Newnham likes the new Trinity Centre. She said she comes about twice a day. “There’s a real sense of togetherness and community. I see people forming friendships. It’s just very laid back.”

But Newnham said there are some “rough patches” to smooth over. And the biggest one is food. On Wednesdays, East Side Mario’s donates meals for everyone at the drop-in, and she said she likes that. But on the other days of the week, the food doesn’t match the quality that One Roof offered, she said.

One of Newnham’s lunch-mates, Chris, said he’s getting used to the Trinity Centre. “It’s a big change, coming to this space,” he said. “I’m getting to like it more now. At first, I was a little uneasy. Now, I’m feeling a little bit better.” 

Newnham pointed out that it took a few weeks for people to start coming to the Trinity drop-in, and Chris agreed. “There are more people that I recognize here now,” he said.

Chris also agreed that the Trinity Centre has replicated One Roof’s community vibe, but that the food isn’t as good.

Meeting the diverse needs of guests is a challenge

Burnett and Palmer mentioned one other challenge they’ve encountered as they try to carry on the work of One Roof: balancing the needs of the overnight guests with those of the daytime guests.

There was no overnight shelter at One Roof; it was just a day program. At Trinity, the community space is transformed into a shelter every night after the drop-in closes. The shelter at Trinity operates from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. from October to March. 

Staff and volunteers have noticed the presence of the overnight shelter has changed the composition of the drop-in’s guests.

“The people who are using the overnight services are predominantly also here during the day,” Burnett said, “whereas at One Roof it was a bit more family and low-income but housed folks.”

Sharing the space with people who are experiencing homelessness can create perceptions of unsafety, even if those concerns are unwarranted, Palmer said. “When we’re offering low barrier services and spaces, it’s a challenge to create a space where everyone feels safe,” they said.

Burnett said she’s “trying to make sure that it’s a space where families do feel welcome,” but that the lack of a commercial kitchen poses a challenge in that regard, because food is such an important element in making people feel welcome.

“Food building community is a thing that crosses culture and crosses differences between people,” Palmer said.

Emergency services are no substitute for permanent solutions: Christian Harvey

The opening of the Trinity Community Centre marked a turning point for One City and its executive director Christian Harvey. Or, perhaps more accurately, it marked a return.

Years ago, Harvey ran the Warming Room, an overflow emergency shelter located in the basement of Murray Street Baptist Church. The Warming Room closed in 2019, which resulted in the erection of Peterborough’s first major tent encampment in Victoria Park that summer.

Harvey and his staff pivoted, launching One City Peterborough later that year and shifting their focus to providing housing rather than emergency shelter. Today, One City owns four properties and manages seven others, providing 30 places to live for people who might otherwise be homeless, according to its website.

Shortly after One City was founded, Harvey said it felt better to be contributing to more permanent solutions, working to prevent homelessness rather than offering emergency responses after the fact.

Now almost five years later, One City is back in the business of providing emergency services, and Harvey recognizes the potential for that work to undermine the push for bigger, more lasting change.

“The worry is that we become a cover for the greater systems that are causing the food insecurity and the housing insecurity,” he said in his new office, which is on the floor above the drop-in space and shelter.

Harvey worries that the Trinity Centre will “relieve the guilt … of the community to not actually address those things at the root.”

“If we get a commercial kitchen and we’re able to feed people, it does not end food insecurity,” Harvey pointed out. “It merely manages it.”

But at the same time, Harvey doesn’t believe he has a choice. In the years since the Warming Room closed, he’s watched as poverty and inequality have become even worse in our community, pushing people further into the margins and leading him to the “disheartening” conclusion that even housing programs like One City’s are insufficient given the scale of the crises facing our community.

So, he’s in charge of a shelter again. And he’s trying to find funding for a kitchen to feed people out of.

“When we stop doing the emergency things, people die,” he said. “And it’s not up to us to decide whether their lives should be used to prove a point.”