Vital to support Riverside South Community Association if benefits are to continue, warns president

By Louise Rachlis
After many hard-working years with the Riverside South Community Association, John Bruce is stepping down this fall from his position as president.
The busy volunteer is proud of what he and his executive have accomplished, and hopes all the good work will be continued by new blood.
Working with Mackie Research Capital, one of Canada’s largest full service privately owned investment dealers, Bruce was a natural to take over the treasurer’s position when he moved to the community from Toronto in 2007.
“I was tired of Toronto, and remembered Ottawa as a nice place which I used to visit growing up in Montreal,” he says. “I knew before I moved here that it was one of Canada’s fastest growing communities demographically, with among the most children under the age of 12. I thought it was a great place to raise a family.”
According to the Riverside South Community Association website, Riverside South is currently home to just over 3,300 households as of May 2011.
The first homes were built in 1996. It is projected to be the fastest growing community in the City of Ottawa through 2011 with an anticipated 13.5% annual growth rate. For comparison, Kanata/Stittsville is expected to have a rate of 6% and Barrhaven is expected to have a rate of 7%.
The boundaries that will eventually form the edges of Riverside South are Leitrim Road to the north, the Rideau River to the west, a line half-way between Earl Armstrong and Rideau Road to the south and Bowesville Road to the east. It will eventually contain 17,600 units in 15 to 20 years, with a population of over 50,000.
Once Bruce took over as treasurer, it was a hectic time for the association. The current president couldn’t continue due to health problems, and from 2007 to 2008 the association operated without a president. With little guidance, he acted as both president and treasurer. Another man who took over as president didn’t stay long because he had to leave the country for his employment, and Bruce took over once again as both president and treasurer.
In February 2010 he became the official president. “I had guidance from Scott Hodge a previous president who came back as vice president,” he said, “but we still had many vacancies on the board.”
He decided to get them filled, and to improve the treasury.
“When I took over as treasurer there was $7,000 or $8,000 in the coffers, and that has increased dramatically.” He introduced sponsorship and advertising to businesses through the website.
He cleaned up the discussion forum where local home businesses had been using it to promote their businesses at no cost. “Many of those businesses saw the benefit of our demographic and started to pay a small fee to advertise.”
Another accomplishment was to set up attendance rules for the Friday night youth drop ins at the Rideauview Community Centre. “That gave children better protection and parents were aware of children who left the building during events and were no longer being supervised.”
He says that attendance is varied, and many of those parents who send their children to the Friday night drop in aren’t members of the Community Association, which is only $10 per family per year.
He negotiated the use of Bernard-Grandmaître elementary school for badminton and obtained free use of the school after the school board had raised the price to $1,300 making it a cash generating and fun activity for the community association which was able to charge $5 a night.
He also increased assistance and support for the community watch program through the Riverside South website and community policing with Nicole Gorham, the community Police Officer; filled the vacancies on the board; discovered a lost $5,000 deposit at a bank; raised the enrolment of membership in the community association to 10 percent of the community from its previous 4 to 5 per cent; used direct mail to raise awareness of RSCA in the community and increased traffic flow to the website, and paid for and had installed additional lighting in Mountain Meadows Skating Rink; solicited and negotiated a discounted rate for the winter use of a heated ATTO structure for the skating rink on Spratt, and paid for transportation to Saunders’ Farm for teens for Halloween.
“What’s still left to be done is to get the community to be aware that if they choose not to be members of the association and do not offer their support, many of the things they take for granted will be lost - such as the skating rinks. There will be nobody available to manage the rink. If we lose the grant money from the city, once the budget is cut it will be very difficult to get back.”
If families that enjoy the Friday night youth drop-in, the badminton, the skating rink, the Canada Day celebrations and so much more - including proper representation at City Hall in times of hardship such as water ban, school issues, and construction - don’t support the association, those benefits may be jeopardized, he says.
Bruce, who turned 50 in May, has a 22-year-old stepdaughter, Danielle, who has completed a degree in political science and has just finished an internship at a hotel in Dubai over the summer, and a six-year-old daughter, Bridget, “who keeps me busy and active.”
His wife Louise, a translator, also assists him as a researcher and with the administrative aspect of the business.
As for the future of the Riverside South Community Association, “a community is very much like a living organism,” he says. “If you do not inject new life, new ideas and new activities, it will stagnate and decay. We have a wonderful community in Riverside South, and if the community gets involved much can be done. When a few hands need to move big objects, it is a demanding task, but when very many hands do the same, it makes the work fun, social, and enjoyable. And that to me is what a successful community looks like - people helping each other to enjoy the place we call home.”
As for his own future, “I have a fairly well balanced life between working and enjoying time with my family,” he says. “I love fishing - Bridget is my little fishing buddy! - camping, golf and being outdoors, and so I will be looking to spend more time on those activities.”
For more information on helping out the association, view www.riversidesouth.org .

Balancing her own life in Barrhaven, Tracy Beardsley trains clients for a lifetime of fitness

By Louise Rachlis
For many people, a treadmill used as a clothes rack is as close to home fitness as they get.
But the recreation room of Tracy Beardsley’s Barrhaven bungalow contains 12 stationary bikes, a universal machine, and a free weight rack of weights.
And as the president of home-based TJ Fit, she’s responsible for turning a lot more people on to bicycles and exercise.
“When we moved into the house in 2002, we painted, but the basement was ready and we didn’t have to do anything. We never expected that that’s what we’d do, but it has worked out great.”
Always passionate about health, fitness and physical exercise, Tracy began her career in fitness downtown in 1994.
In 2005, when she was pregnant with her second child, the certified personal trainer decided to “move it home.” “I needed to balance my family and work life and ‘moving it home’ was the best thing I ever did,” she says. “It has allowed me the flexibility to raise my three children and yet still contribute to my family and the community.”
Her husband of 10 years, Peter Pearson, is a big cycling fan too. The couple biked to their wedding, and recently to Perth for their 10th anniversary. Their children are Ben, five, Katie, four, and Cloe, eight.
While she has developed a strong clientele from the neighborhood, she also has some devotees who come from downtown to spin.
She loves to work with people at a personal level, focussing her approach on “helping individuals to believe in themselves, set realistic health and fitness goals, and achieve them.”

In the spring, fall, and summer months she takes the indoor rides outside where she runs a cycle club. “We have local rides that take us to the Gatineau, Merrickville, Perth, along the paths in the city, as well as overnight trips to the Eastern Townships, Finger Lakes, Vermont, Mont Tremblant and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.” They do spring training on Steeple Hill Road near Fallowfield, and there are lots of pleasant bike routes from Barrhaven to Richmond, North Gower, and north of Dunrobin, she says, and they typically coordinate a lunch with their rides.
Winter is the busiest season for indoor spinning.
As for her own fitness, “I find I’m less fit now than I was years ago. I’m in a maintenance phase. It’s not about my workout, it’s about the participants. I can’t coach and work out at a high intensity.” She’s frequently off her bike, checking riders’ form, providing water, and looking after the class.
The bulk of her clientele are between 30 and 70, and many are couples.
She has two other instructors, Murray Kronick, and Karen Wheeler.
“Sometimes it has been hard,” she says, “but I wouldn’t change what I do. I love watching people change in fitness. With the growing obesity levels, heart disease and diabetes, we have to get people moving.
“I look up to my clients who are in phenomenal shape in their 50s, 60s and 70s. They are inspiring. It’s never too late to get active.”
Contact TJ Fit at tracy@tjfit.com or view www.tjfit.com.

Vacancy rates in Ottawa lowest in Ontario as community housing wait list grows

By Louise Rachlis
A new report on housing issues shows that it is especially difficult for low and modest income people in Kingston and Ottawa to find affordable rental housing that is appropriate for their families.
The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association and the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada Ontario Region have released the 2011 edition of Where’s Home? The report analyzes 22 separate housing markets and highlights the need for more affordable rental housing across the province.
According to the report, vacancy rates in Kingston (1.0%) and Ottawa (1.6%) are the lowest in Ontario and well below the 3% vacancy rate threshold for a healthy rental housing market. Affordable homes are needed for more than 152,000 households on community housing wait lists across Ontario.
Among the report’s main findings were:
• Vacancy rates across the province and particularly in urban centers have tightened with the provincial average now at 2.9%.
• One-in-five Ontario renter households are spending more than half their income on housing.
• There is a growing gap in the incomes of tenants and homeowners.
• Median tenant incomes have actually declined by $5,000 over the last 20 years from $41,000 in to $36,000.
• Demand for affordable units is conservatively estimated at 10,000 homes a year for the next decade and at best we are adding only a few thousand units a year.
• An astonishing 94% of the housing starts in the last five year period were in the ownership market, with rental accounting for only 5%. Just 15 years ago, rental construction accounted for over a quarter (27%) of the market.
• Food bank usage is up as many low and modest income households must choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table.
Mary-Ann Schwering is Executive Director of the Co-operative Housing Association of Eastern Ontario. Although she was not involved in producing the report, she has certainly experienced its findings.
“It’s pretty clear that housing charges are on the increase,” she says, “and there is a lot of pressure on people living in the co-ops to pay more than they feel able to. As well subsidy pools are shrinking.”
That means that “everybody is feeling the pinch.” “Coops themselves are aging, and people living in the housing coops who don’t qualify for subsidies are finding that they are paying the same as other rents around in another complex. It’s not because co-ops might not want to provide lower rents, but they can’t. The expenses are the same as in the private sector and they are forced to put their rents up. There always seem to be more people in need than there is housing available.”
Ottawa’s newest co-op housing is Maclean Co-operative Homes, occupied since 2007. Maclean has a group of townhomes and apartments, with slightly lower rent. Blue Heron in Kanata, also with townhomes and apartments, has been around slightly longer, since 2006. “There could be so many more,” she says. “People call us seeking supportive house and we refer them back to the website www.chaseo.org . There is a vacancy report there, but very few geared to income, and they fill up pretty quickly.”
Amanda Shaughnessy is the Manager of Coop Voisins, a 76-unit apartment building in the Sandy Hill neighborhood. “I get calls all the time from people with very low incomes, who are desperate to find an affordable apartment,” she says. “It’s hard to tell them that they will have to wait three to four years due to the long waiting list.”
The Coop’s members are families, students, seniors and singles. Forty-five of the units are subsidized. In 2010, six of the subsidized units changed hands. The turnover is low because members won’t normally move unless they can find another affordable or subsidized unit, and the waiting list for these is long.”
The new members were referred from the centralized waiting list, the Registry. There are over 10,000 applicants on the registry’s waiting list.
“Some of the households came from priority categories,” she says, “such as Special Priority (victim of domestic violence), Urgent Safety and Homeless. A couple of others came from the chronological waiting list. Families sometimes live in motels while they wait for safe, affordable housing. Others wait in shelters.”
Since moving into the Coop, most of the members have experienced a positive change in their lives and have gone back to school or found jobs. “The members find that having a safe, affordable home in a friendly community allows them to get on with their lives.”
The average gross income of all the Coop’s subsidized families is $16,451. The average income for all singles is $10,329. Even with a lower housing charge (rent), she says it is still a challenge for them to pay their monthly bills, especially Hydro bills, since the Coop apartments are heated with electric baseboard heating.
“And yet, the members realize that they are better off than the thousands of people with low incomes who are trying to find an affordable apartment in the marketplace.”

The report “Where’s Home?” can be found on www.onpha.on.ca or www.chfc.ca.

Grounded grows in downtown popularity

By Louise Rachlis
When Amir Rahim runs or walks from his home at Metcalfe and Lisgar to his restaurant at 100 Gloucester near O’Connor, he’s well aware of the joys of living and working in Centretown.
All week long, at noon hour Grounded Kitchen & Coffeehouse is packed with neighborhood office worker dine-in-ers while a line of dine-out-ers snakes up to pick up their meals to go.
Some sit alone in the comfortable location, with their pocket novels or newspapers; others chat in small and large groups.
The restaurant is also busy for breakfast from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., and dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“I’ve been in restaurants my whole life,” says Amir. “Everything I’ve done has led to this.”
He came from Toronto with his family when he was seven, and has “seen Ottawa grow from a quiet town. I love Ottawa.”
Both his parents began running a Swiss Chalet restaurant in 1979, and he and his sister “grew up” there.
Now his own daughter Nazlin, six, has the same opportunity to grow up in a restaurant just as her father did. She even has her own menu of “roast beef, cucumber and Swiss cheese” which she has named “The Nazlin Special” and sells for a dollar.
“I get real pride when she says ‘let’s go to Daddy’s café,’” says her father.
He is also grateful for the help of Andrea, his life partner. “I wouldn’t be here without her. She has been by my side since the decision to do this. She gets free bagels and cream cheese - her favorite - for life.”
And he says he couldn’t have done it either without his business partner and friend Gabriel Pollock, who is the restaurant’s co-owner and chef.
In the summer of 2010, their “lifelong dream” to open a restaurant with quality food and all natural ingredients came to fruition.
“I was looking for a business for a year and a half,” says Amir. “When this location became available, I decided to make a go of it. I’m super grateful it has turned out as I planned.”
Just like the meals that are created completely from scratch, he is proud that his furnishings are “built from the ground up” too.
The open-kitchen at Grounded serves from behind two wooden carts, former Museum of Civilization exhibition items they picked up from Cohen & Cohen Re-use Store. The bar is built out of whiskey barrels, and there’s a glass table made from an old door.
After deciding on their location in the former Hair Junkie Salon, Amir and Gabe enlisted the help of friends to build the coffee bar, scrape the ceiling, and paint the walls.
Gabe and Amir decided on the concept of an outdoor market, indoors, and the menu and their business evolved from there. “I’ve seen a lot of restaurants and I’m confident in what we’re doing. Customers can use real plates and cutlery, but not spend a fortune.”
Most of their customers walk in from within a five block radius, but some come “all the way from Kent Street.” “The response was all from word of mouth. We had to show up and be all we could be, and the word travelled.”
He has learned that “real estate is key” and would like eventually to have multiple locations. “There are a lot of condos going up and it’s not as risky to set up in a less ‘congregated’ location,” he says. “Ottawa is becoming more of an urban city. It’s not Montreal or Toronto, but it’s getting there.”
View www.groundedkitchencoffee.com .
Amir laughs. “Daniel [a friend] met us at the store with a bunch of change. We all got toghttp://groundedkitchencoffee.com/our-story.htmlether and pulled out of our pockets whatever change we could