By Karen Plater, Stewardship, and Betty Kupeian, Presbyterian Church Building Corporation. Originally published in The Presbyterian Connection Fall 2023. For two days at the end of April 2023, Betty Kupeian, Chief Operating Officer of the Presbyterian Church Building Corporation (PCBC); Ainsley Chapman, Executive Director, Evangel Hall; Karen Plater, Associate Secretary, Stewardship, The Presbyterian Church in Canada; and the Rev. Dr. …
Recognizing Support From our Community
Clients and participants can expect respect and dignity while at EHM, but this is not always guaranteed that attitude outside our building. Luckily, EHM is part of a strong community that shares our same beliefs and cares for our neighbours. This is why we feel it is important to recognize those in our community who help support our clients and …
One of EHM’s Most Impactful Programs
How the Financial Trustee Program is Changing Lives When clients volunteer to enroll in the Financial Trustee Program, they authorize EHM to receive and manage their income on their behalf. Clients are active participants in planning and decision-making and can leave the program at any time. The purpose of the program is to protect clients from common money issues and …
Moving through a Merger Process
EHM’s Senior Director of Programs and Client Care recently won an award for her leadership during a 2021 merger between EHM and Portland Place, a small, 45 unit housing provider. Jennifer was recognized in particular for how she engaged staff and clients throughout the whole process. We sat down with Jennifer to hear more behind her strategy. What motivated EHM …
Faith Based Housing and Redevelopment at the Ontario Non-profit Housing Association Provincial Conference
Every year in October, the Ontario Non-profit Housing Association (ONPHA) hosts a provincial conference that brings together people to learn and share about everything from building, growing, to managing housing. Two major themes came out this year – the first looked at the struggles of small housing providers, and the second was at the challenges that faith-based communities face when …
More Than Just Housing, We Need to Build Community
By Ainsley Chapman, Executive Director, Evangel Hall Mission As more and more church properties are being sold to developers and private owners for housing or businesses, churches across the country in big cities and in small rural communities and of all denominations, have started important conversations about the future of their church land and buildings. One of those conversations is …
When Grief Prevents Imagining a New Future
It is bound to come up quickly in the conversation at any gathering of church folk, whether in a formal setting of a Session or presbytery meeting, or maybe just a coffee shop: how ill-equipped we feel to find a new role for the church in the rapidly changing environment of our world. We face declining numbers of people coming …
What Does It Mean to be Stewards of Our Land?
By the Rev. Rebecca Jess, Armour Heights Presbyterian Church in Toronto Ont., and Vice President, Evangel Hall Mission Board of Directors Land is important in the Bible. We hear a lot about it in the earliest books: promises from God around land, Israelites seeking land, the releasing of land at Jubilee, to name a few. Land is important. Land sustains, …
About Canada’s Affordable Housing Crisis
One of the most commonly asked questions I have addressed in the past year is: “We see so much homelessness in our community—how can we help?” To understand how we can help, it’s important to first understand a bit about how we try to move people who are homeless out of shelters and into housing. One way to visualize housing …
Congratulations Jennifer on Receiving the Sybil Frenette Outstanding Leadership Award
Congratulations to Jennifer Sully-Ferraro our Senior Director of Programs and Client Care, for receiving the prestigious Sybil Frenette Outstanding Leadership Award, at the recent ONPHA conference. This award is in acknowledgement of the work that Jennifer did throughout the Portland Place merger. It was a challenging process, but Jennifer’s vision, strong leadership, and collaborative approach to problem solving, turned around …