How a pandemic transformed House of Friendship

When the COVID-19 outbreak took hold in March, people throughout Waterloo Region immediately, and rightfully, stepped up amid plenty of fanfare to help support hospitals and health-care workers.

Less well-publicized was a simultaneous crisis unfolding at local shelters, charities and not-for-profits as the virus put a chokehold on the economy and created urgent needs for food, shelter and mental health help. Families and individuals without jobs and income were hurting.

“When things go sideways, people fall through the cracks,” says John Neufeld, Executive Director of House of Friendship, which has been delivering food, shelter and counselling services to Waterloo Region residents since 1939.

When the pandemic hit, House of Friendship, like other charities in the region, was forced to reinvent itself on the fly. All its programs had to be revamped, literally overnight. As so began what Neufeld called “a daily white-knuckle adventure” for his staff of 230 and 1,700 volunteers.

“All our programs are very much in-person,” said Neufeld. “All of them are deemed essential services. And so, all of a sudden, we’re told we’ve got to do it differently. And so you’ve got to pivot.”

House of Friendship got its start at the tail end of the Great Depression, a time which – as Neufeld described Tuesday during an hour-long video version of Communitech’s long-standing lunchtime speaker series called Pizza with the Prez – had much in common with the economic devastation now unfolding across much of the world.

Pivoting was complex, in large part because the House of Friendship itself is a large, sophisticated operation, performing three vital roles in the community: providing food to those who need it; housing to those who have none; and counselling to those at risk. The catch induced by COVID-19 was that its services are very much people-focused, requiring daily contact with those it serves. Suddenly the same services had to be provided, but largely without human contact. 

Take food, for example. House of Friendship acts as a distribution agent for the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. The food bank collects the food and distributes it to partners like House of Friendship. House of Friendship then makes sure food gets to those who need it, serving, Neufeld says, 100 to 120 families per day. There are some 80 other organizations in Waterloo Region – churches and such – that perform a similar role, but few do so at House of Friendship’s scale.

“We’re the main kind of space in Kitchener-Waterloo where you can come and get a full hamper of food for three to five days,” says Neufeld. “We can’t shut our food hamper program down when people are struggling with hunger. They need access to food.”

So changes were quickly made to reduce face-to-face interaction. Plexiglass shields, much like the ones now found in grocery stores, were quickly installed at its distribution points. 

Typically, pre-pandemic, people would arrive at House of Friendship and explain their dietary needs and a food box would be custom prepared. A household with a baby, for instance, would receive diapers and baby food. A Muslim household would receive Halal meat. A vegetarian would be issued meatless proteins.

Now, instead of coming indoors, recipients are required to first wait in a line. Four people at a time are allowed inside. Food hampers are now largely pre-packed.

“So we can’t customize to the level we would normally,” says Neufeld, but we’re at least continuing to provide food and an essential service.”

House of Friendship also plays a role in delivering food once a week through five neighbourhood community centres. Procedures there have changed, too. Pre-packed food boxes issued from the back of a truck have replaced people being able to select produce and build their own food hampers.

And with many in the region suddenly unable to work, demand has soared almost 200 per cent. In the four weeks prior to April 22, House of Friendship served 576 households, versus 185 in the same period last year.

“We’re seeing a significant increase in people who haven’t used this kind of service before,” said Neufeld, adding that he also expects an added surge in demand six months from now, ast unfolded during the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Arguably an even more extreme pivot was required with regard to House of Friendship’s housing program. “That’s where we got rocked the most,” says Neufeld.

House of Friendship had some 50 people living in a shelter – “a large, old house with 12 bedrooms. Four to seven people shared a room. There’s no room to socially isolate.

“And so the week when things started shutting down we had a gastrointestinal breakout. We had two individuals with (COVID-19) symptoms and public health saying you’ve got to isolate them.”

But how?

Salvation came in the form of an email from a local hotelier, offering up unused rooms for House of Friendships’ shelter population. “The rooms will be ready for you in the morning,” he was told.

“We started with 50 gentlemen and then due to the need we increased [the available beds]. We added another floor in the hotel and got it up to 80 beds.”

And there was a silver lining. For years, Neufeld and his staff had long hoped to integrate health care for shelter residents, many of whom need medical attention from time spent living on the streets.

Today, precisely that has unfolded. Medical teams are now working side-by-side with shelter staff. “It’s a vision that we … said is probably going to take us three to five years,” Neufeld said. “What happens when the vision you have and everything you’ve worked on happens in 24 hours?

“We’re seeing incredible outcomes. There’s better physical and mental health. There’s reduced visits to the emergency department. More [of our clients] are ready to be transitioned into housing. There’s increased resilience and hope. All because this new location is providing dignity, autonomy and support for some of our most chronic and vulnerable in the homeless community.”

Pausing as he began to choke up, Neufeld then shared a note he received from one of the people living in the hotel:

“I feel like for the first time in a long time I’m all right. Because of the conditions at the [hotel], I’ve been able to see a health-care provider for the first time in over five years. I’m sleeping, really sleeping, and I’m starting to feel like me, thanks to the [hotel] team, I’ve realized that I can have a life worth living and that I can do this.”

“This just would have never happened under normal circumstances,” Neufeld says. “It would have taken years to plan everything out – protocols, logistics, you know, all this. But it was like, we didn’t have a choice.

“At last year’s [fundraising] dinner, that’s what the focus was on. We kind of set this vision. We said, this is what we’re going to be working on for the next three to five years to make this a reality.

“And it happened in 24 hours.”

None of House of Friendship’s programs can take place without money and donations, and fundraising in the face of the pandemic has proven, as you would expect, to be a challenge. In many cases, people have been willing to give, but suddenly find themselves in financial circumstances that make giving more difficult.

“We’ve [received] emails and connections from folks that say, ‘You know, what? We’d love to help you. But three out of five people in our household or four to five people in our household have just lost their job and, as a result, we’re struggling.’

“The business, the entrepreneurs, who have always been so generous, all of a sudden they’re finding themselves in a place where, you know, they’re not sure their businesses are going to be sustainable. They’re laying off people.

“And so I think for those who are in a position [to give] and can, they are definitely reaching out and trying to make a difference. But it’s been a tough, tough situation because I think people that normally would want to now all of a sudden find themselves in a position where they can’t. We respect that and can appreciate that.”

Precisely to address that need, Communitech on Tuesday unveiled a new charitable donation program called “This, too, will pass.”

The program provides a matching donation of two dollars for every dollar given by an individual or company to the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation (KWCF) – an umbrella organization that supports a broad range of charitable causes in Waterloo Region. A donation of $100, for example, is instantly turned into $300. Charitable receipts will be issued by KWCF.

The boost comes thanks to the help of several Communitech corporate partners, including: TD, FairVentures, Interac, Thomson Reuters, Rogers and Sonova.

“We sent a survey to local charities to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their organizations,” said Elizabeth Heald, President and CEO at Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation. “Almost all of them are experiencing challenges with increasing demand while having to change how they are operating; fundraising opportunities are being reduced, and the cost of providing services is going up.

“I believe that across our community, we’ve always had good intentions of being collaborative, and did what we could, but COVID-19 has made it a necessity to take it to the next level.”