Creating a sense of physical safety is such an important part of the work we do! Meet Rhonda, Facilities Maintenance Supervisor, to learn more about the work our Facilities team does and how they are part of creating spaces for healing in our buildings.

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am originally from Niagara Falls, Ontario. I have been working at YESS for a little over ten years now. I am a single mom of two amazing boys who definitely keep me on my toes. I love Yoga, Indian food, 80s flicks, and the color pink!

How is your department part of YESS’ mission to walk beside youth on their journey towards healing.

The Facilities department provides youth with a safe, clean, and welcoming environment. We are responsible for performing a variety of cleaning duties, as well as the maintenance, and upkeep of our buildings. A few of those tasks include keeping our donation rooms stocked, providing clean bedding, keeping program areas sanitized, and providing the youth with warm nutritious meals. 

Having lived experience with homelessness as a youth myself, it provides me with the ability to understand their needs, and a different perspective I might not have otherwise.

What is one thing you with the community knew about YESS youth?

I wish the community could see how strong and resilient these kids are. 

It takes incredible strength to get up and face the world each day with the barriers they have in front of them. Youth experiencing homelessness face all kinds of stereotypes, and people often assume that they somehow brought this on themselves, or that they’re bad kids, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

These are kids. They are just like yours, and mine. All they want is to be accepted, to be seen and heard, and most of all to be loved. 

In my ten years at YESS, I have met some incredible youth, and have been blown away by what some of them have accomplished in their short stay here. It’s amazing what one can do when given the proper resources and having someone believe in them.

When COVID-19 made its way to Canada, Alberta, and then Edmonton, we were all asked to take the necessary steps to be sure that we kept not only ourselves safe, but our neighbors, our families, our friends, and our co-workers.  As an agency we implemented policies to keep our doors open and all of you as safe as possible, which meant adapting our working arrangements to reduce exposure for those of us who are required on site to take care of each other and our youth – that because of all the closures had no where else to go. Out of our responsibility to our community and our youth we made the decision to keep our doors open 24/7 – and we will continue to do so permanently.

This decision is so important and is best explained by our Tessa Mulcair, Manager of Shelters:

“With Nexus covering 8PM-11AM and the Armoury Resource Centre (ARC) 11AM-8PM, every single day, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the stress that our youth face when there are no safe places to be at certain hours of certain days. With COVID-19 affecting many agency/program hours and operational abilities, our youth struggle to have their needs met consistently outside of YESS right now. While the pandemic is still filled with fear for all of us, having the 24/7 model in place ensures that our youth aren’t further compounding that trauma with having to worry about finding shelter/food/bathrooms/etc. during the evening and weekend hours…

“From everyone at YESS, we want to say a huge thank you to all of the staff who have continued to work the frontline through all of the many changes to scheduling and procedures. You are an incredible, inspiring team that has never stopped putting the youth first through this all.”