Kelowna customer services manager helps folks get back on their feet

1/30/2008 9:54 a.m.

"Walking in another's shoes" refers metaphorically to leaving our personal cocoons and viewing life as others see it. For Maureen Hanak, customer services manager at Horizon Air's Kelowna station, accomplishing this involved, well, actual walking.

"My husband and I take walks in the early morning, and back in 2001, we noticed that as the weather got colder, we'd see more and more homeless people sleeping under any sort of shelter they could find," she says. "It was sad to see, so we thought there might be something we could do to help."

Hanak discussed the issue with other Kelowna citizens, and this group of volunteers developed a program called "Inn From the Cold." They arranged for the use of a school bus to pick up homeless people every night (up to 30) and drive them to a church providing a warm, safe place to sleep.

"Within a couple of years, we got to the point where we were able to provide them with mats to sleep on, plus meals at night and in the morning," Hanak says. "It also evolved into two or three churches every winter that offered the use of their space."

Hanak and her group began focusing their attention on providing a fixed residence and additional services, such as job training, to help these individuals establish healthier lives and break the cycle of poverty.

"Some of the more business-minded people among the volunteers began making queries about the possibility of government funding for a permanent home," she says. "For almost five years, we worked slowly but surely toward that goal, and last winter, the British Columbia Housing Authority provided us with $1.5 million in funds to purchase and renovate a building."

The building, formerly a four-plex house, was renovated to offer 18 bedrooms, a communal kitchen and living room, and an office. It opened in May, and was named Ozanam House, after Frederic Ozanam, who founded Saint Vincent de Paul. There are similar Ozanam Houses located throughout the world.

"We're extremely excited about the support given to us by the community here," Hanak says. "It's amazing how much support we have received simply by going hat in hand and asking."

Some of that support has come from Horizon, which recently provided a pair of positive-space roundtrip tickets to Ozanam House so representatives could travel to observe a similar facility.

"Our plan is based loosely on a house that is extremely successful in San Diego, and we'd like to send our house manager and an assistant there to see how it is run," Hanak says. "I originally requested some standby passes for Horizon and Alaska, but I was so impressed when we were given positive-space passes instead. This trip will be very beneficial to our organization."

Hanak and her fellow volunteers, who now number 100, are also currently working to secure additional funding for the Inn From the Cold program.

"I was recently at a meeting of a number of representatives from help groups in Kelowna, and a woman recognized me from Inn From the Cold," Hanak says. "She said, ‘I just wanted to tell you that I was one of those people you helped, and I can't tell you what having a roof over my head did in helping me get back on my feet.'

"She's now working for another organization that helps others. It was such a wonderful feeling, and it made me feel that, even if our group can do nothing else, all of our efforts have been worth it."