Hamilton social-service agency purchases Main Street East building.
(Pictured above) Wesley kitchen staff Sandy Moniz, left, and Ilham Majni prepare dinners for its clients at the agency’s newly purchased Main Street East location. Heidi Henschel, founder of Fairmount Foundation and a major donor, CEO Rashed Afif, along with Alan Kobayashi, manager of food services, check out how the meals are coming along. Cathie Coward/The Hamilton Spectator
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Why rent when you can own? Wesley asked itself that question the last time it moved to yet another leased space in Hamilton.
That was in 2023, when the social-service agency set up shop in a former retirement home on Main Street East near Wentworth.
Three years later, with the help of hefty donations, Wesley has bought the building, owning its space for the first time in its 71-year history.
The roughly $9-million transaction helps secure the organization’s future, which is better for the people it helps, CEO Rashed Afif says.
“We’re in a good place,” Afif says about Wesley, which specializes in programs focused on children, families, homelessness, newcomers, employment and food security.
In the 13 years he has been with Wesley, the non-profit has moved three times.
The last relocation from rented space on Catharine Street North downtown was especially difficult, Afif says.
“It was disruptive. It was hard for the clients, for the staff.”
The search for a new centrally located home wasn’t easy, Afif says. But Wesley caught a “very lucky” break when the same landlord on Catharine offered the Main East building for rent.
Cathie Coward/The Hamilton Spectator
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Afif recalled about checking out the building for the first time. “It really fit well.”
Wesley has been able to grow there, offering transitional housing for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as people struggling with addiction and homelessness.
At any given time, some 150 clients live in the building’s suites and work with support staff to rebound into permanent housing of their own.
When Wesley moved in, it renovated the building’s kitchen, where staff prepared about 130,000 meals last year.
Those were served on-site but also delivered by van to clients in the community — including in CityHousing units — who struggle with food security.
Cathie Coward/The Hamilton Spectator
“I just know how important this organization is for the community and it totally made sense that they would buy this building,” said Heidi Henschel, founder of the Fairmount Foundation.
The Fairmount Foundation donated $1.6 million to Wesley, the largest monetary gift in its history, to support the purchase of 467 Main St. E.
“You’re not paying rent and possibly being vulnerable to a landlord that decides they want to put it on the market and sell it to a developer,” Henschel said.
That security is important, especially in a landscape of limited and unpredictable government funding, Afif points out.
Now, the goal is to pay off the mortgage, ideally with the help of more donations, so Wesley can put more funds into programming, he says.
Before the Fairmount Foundation’s donation, the largest in Wesley’s history came courtesy of longtime volunteer Bob Wright in 2023.
Her father was able to see the Main East building before he died in September, daughter Nancy Mann said.
“As a family, we are just delighted to see (the purchase) come to fruition.”
The family has decided to keep the amount confidential, but the donation was “significant,” Mann said.
“One of my father’s life mottos was to leave the world a better place than you found it,” she said.
Teviah Moro’s reporting on housing and homelessness is funded by Hamilton Community Foundation, which supports reliable journalism to advance public awareness. HCF does not assign, edit, vet or endorse editorial content. Reach him at tmoro@thespec.com.
