Serving the hungry, taxed like a business

Bread of Life volunteers fear city's denial of tax exemption will shut their doors for good

BY QUINN BENDER

The operators of Terrace’s only downtown soup kitchen say a denied tax exemption from city council may be enough to shut their doors for good.

Delphine and Ron Dame, who have run the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen from the All Nations Centre (ANC) since 2008, now owe nearly $4,000 in municipal taxes—after council voted down their appeal for full exemption as a non-profit. They fear the mounting debt will grow each year and could eventually overwhelm the volunteer-run operation.

Still, Delphine isn’t angry. She’s simply bewildered.

Ron Dame serves patrons at the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen in Terrace, B.C., where he and his wife Delphine fear a denied tax exemption from city council could leave them with a bill large enough to sink their non-profit for good. Quinn Bender photo

“It’s not just the people down here that are getting help, it’s the people up there too [on Cherry Lane],” she said. “They might never realize it, it might never cross their mind, but they’re benefiting too.”

Her comments follow a more pointed statement, delivered with rare bluntness for someone known for cautious empathy.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said.

“The community benefits from this in ways they don’t see, and would never want to see,” she continued. “Let’s say you have your little home and you live on Cherry Lane. You’re not seeing the type of homeless person who is not the best part of society. They’ve got a place to come and eat, to go to the bathroom, to get warm. If that place wasn’t there, your nice little home would be getting broken into.”

In spite of the stereotype she acknowledges—and the people nearby she might offend—Delphine’s words are unmistakably aimed at city hall.

A shared table

It’s 2 p.m. on Sunday. As the doors open, the patron Delphine described as “not the best part of society” is nowhere in sight. People take seats at a dozen tables, and conversation quickly builds—punctuated by regular laughter.

The Bread of Life serves a wide range of people, many of whom don’t fit public assumptions about homelessness.

“Sure, there are people addicted to drugs and alcohol or whatever,” said Ron, ANC’s director. “But there are also old-age pensioners and elderly people, people on disability incomes, the mentally handicapped…sorry, I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it. There are also working people on very, very low—and this is a big part of it—very low incomes. It could be anyone.”

The Dames understand both sides of the poverty line. They live on the metaphorical Cherry Lane themselves—retired since the mid-2000s from well-paying careers, Ron as a steam engineer and Delphine as a psychiatric nurse. Now they spend about half their time working on behalf of the poor: collecting food donations, fundraising, managing volunteers, helping with errands, and preparing and serving meals.

Between them, they contribute the equivalent of a full-time job—without a paycheque. Former patrons now volunteer alongside them, and local contractors have supported the centre with repairs and renovations.

The 100-per-cent volunteer-run operation has survived this way for nine years, powered equally by the Dames’ commitment and the community’s support.

Loss of exemption, loss of certainty

The centre’s most significant charitable support came not through funding, but through a full property tax exemption—one it lost through a chain of decisions involving both BC Assessment and city council.

In 2008, the BC Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists Church purchased the All Nations Centre and extended its status as a place of public worship. That designation qualified the building for a statutory property tax exemption through BC Assessment.

But in 2016, BC Assessment reclassified the property after being informed the centre was no longer meeting the requirement of 150 days of public worship per year. The Dames had offered weekly Saturday services until Ron’s health declined, but that still left the centre well short of the minimum.

With the statutory exemption removed, the ANC could only regain tax relief through a permissive exemption—one that required approval from city council.

On Sept. 11, council declined to grant a full exemption.

Instead, council approved a partial exemption of 29 per cent, reflecting the two days a week the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen operates. The remaining 71 per cent of the tax bill was deemed owing because the building is rented during the week to the Terrace and District Community Services Society (TDCSS).

TDCSS pays the ANC $500 per month to operate the Living Room Project from the space—a daytime outreach program providing food, clothing, shelter, counselling and other services for unhoused residents.

City staff determined that rent constituted profit, and recommended council deny a full exemption on the grounds that the building was not being used exclusively for non-profit purposes.

Councillors Lynne Christiansen and Brian Downie supported the ANC’s request.

“I think that we’re using the term ‘for profit’ in the way it’s not intended,” Downie said. “This is a non-profit organization and is using whatever rent to subsidize other parts of their operation… It is to enable them to provide services they would not be able to provide otherwise.”

The rest of council focused on financial fairness.

“I think it is leased out for profit,” said Councillor James Cordeiro. “We have to keep in mind that every dollar we exempt on one party comes from someone else, or comes out of services.”

Mayor Carol Leclerc echoed that position in a follow-up interview.

“These are hard decisions for council,” she said. “They’re heart-wrenching ones to make but we have to make sure we can provide all of the services our city needs.

“If we were to allow a permissive tax exemption on 100 per cent, those tax dollars would need to be picked up by everybody else… those tax dollars just don’t go away.”

Leclerc said council was confident in BC Assessment’s reclassification decision. BC Assessment, however, has stated the change was based strictly on the number of worship days—not on any rental income received by the centre.

A mission grows

The Dames served their first patron in the winter of 1996—outside, from a picnic table in George Little Park, with a pot of soup and a bag of cookies.

“We were just baptized,” said Ron. “Both of us came to the conclusion that there’s got to be more to church than just going there once a week. We see the love that God put out toward his people… there’s got to be more.”

They soon found indoor space inside Carpenters’ Hall. Their resolve deepened after a patron, Melvin Aksidan, died of exposure in the woods between Mills Memorial Hospital and the Sande Overpass.

By 2008, homelessness in Terrace had reached a critical point. City council, the RCMP and downtown businesses were all calling for solutions to public intoxication in the city core.

“Everybody wants something done,” said Councillor Marylin Davies at the time. “There are people with addiction problems, people who want help… [they] need a place to collect together downtown.”

When the Seventh-day Adventists offered to purchase Carpenters’ Hall for the Dames, the owners dropped the asking price by nearly $25,000 upon learning of its intended use. The Dames renamed it the All Nations Centre.

Shortly after, TDCSS outreach worker Casey Eys proposed a partnership: ANC had space, and TDCSS had staff and resources.

TDCSS would occupy the centre Monday to Friday. Bread of Life would continue Sunday meals and Saturday worship.

“It is seen more and more as a gathering place than just a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee,” Eys told the Terrace Standard in 2009. “The public has been crying for a community centre for some time. Now we’ve got it.”

A partnership ends

Today, TDCSS executive director Michael McFetridge has confirmed the society will move out of the ANC due to the council decision.

“What we’re doing in that space is critical. But we can’t depend on the city, obviously,” he said. “From their own actions, we can’t depend on them.”

He said it’s unfair for the Dames to incur a tax burden tied to services his agency provides, but TDCSS can’t take on the bill without putting the Living Room Project at risk.

“The city is judging revenues incorrectly, and poorly,” he said. “A not-for-profit charity, by legal definition, does not have profit. They have revenue… that is a basic business principle that anyone in the municipality should understand.”

During the same Sept. 11 meeting, council also denied tax exemptions to two TDCSS housing projects—a separate but related matter that McFetridge said contradicts both the city’s Official Community Plan and its long-term vision, Terrace 2050.

That document calls for partnerships with non-profits and “the creation of a network of safe places for people to seek refuge and find ways to become part of a more healthy community.”

“When groups come forward and do what the city has asked them to do, but are then not supported in the manner the city has declared in writing… well, it’s very confusing, and it’s going to cause problems.”

A little monster

The Dames, the patrons and the volunteers remain hopeful the city will come to see the value of the services being offered at the ANC.

“We are not planning to close,” Delphine said, “but it could happen.”

According to ANC treasurer Linda Wilson, the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen raised $23,450 for operations in 2016. Of that, $7,000 came from TDCSS. She estimates the value of 6,075 volunteer hours and in-kind donations at nearly $390,000.

“The Bread of Life Soup Kitchen does not charge for their soup or food distribution,” Wilson wrote in a letter to the Standard. “TDCSS does not charge their patrons… There is no charge to anyone who comes to us for a warm, safe, welcoming place to spend time.

“We provide all these services for free, fundraise in order to cover the costs of supplies and operation, and now we are being required to fundraise an additional $3,500-plus for taxes so that we can continue to provide these free services. Something is very wrong with this picture!”

In the ANC’s storage room—surrounded by deep-freezers and crates of produce—Delphine waits for a swell of laughter to pass over volunteers packing food hampers.

The ANC isn't so fragile that a single bill could collapse it, she said. But added to the ongoing strain of fundraising, volunteer coordination and Ron’s health, it could be the weight that tips the balance.

“If we go under, it’s not any one person’s fault,” she said, glancing toward the main hall. “But while we’re dealing with all of this,” she adds, gesturing over her shoulder, “that bill is sitting over there in its own special category.

“It’s a little monster.”