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Saanich songstress has a bounce in her step

Olympic Vista tenant opens up about life on Carey Road
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Yvonne Sproule stares at a mask she designed that hangs in the foyer of the Olympic Vista building where she lives.

Every couple of months a few tenants at the Olympic Vista building on Carey Road gather for a jam session.

Yvonne Sproule is very relaxed about how it happened, but, without any singing background or ability to play an instrument, she burst into song during one of the most recent sessions.

“The song just came off the top of my head, it’s not for anyone or about anything,” Sproule said.

A YouTube video of Sproule crooning the song, Empty Arms Without You, has been a hit around Olympic Vista and the Cool Aid community of staff and tenants. And it’s brought some spark to Sproule, 62, an original at Olympic Vista.

To be clear, Sproule admitted she has written songs, but never had she been in the habit of bursting into song.

Sproule moved in when the 36-suite building opened in 2011, as a giant-sized lego-like structure rebuilt out of modular sections that once housed winter Olympic athletes in 2010.

“I joke to tenants that maybe, just maybe, their’s was Sidney Crosby’s suite,” says seniors housing co-ordinator Ed O’Brien.

With a hot meal served daily (dinner Monday to Friday, lunch on weekends), and a harm reduction model that permits tenants the private discretion to deal with addiction, the supportive, seniors-only housing model (55-and-up) at Olympic Vista is a far cry from what you’d find in Canada’s recent history, let alone its past.

It is based on a sister building in Langford, FairWay Woods, which offers the same model to 32 tenants. And while the new Cottage Grove building isn’t quite the same model, it shares some similarities. Seniors at risk of homelessness are now moving into Cottage Grove supported housing facility at Quadra and Tolmie, Cool Aid’s second foray into Saanich. Cottage Grove is another example of the collaboration of governments with $6 million coming from the provincial and federal Canada-B.C. Investment in Affordable Housing, the CRD ($675,000), and Saanich and Victoria with $112,000 each.

For Sproule, the days are filled with Scrabble playing and art. She’s not as interested in visiting nearby Uptown shopping centre or jumping on the BC Transit bus that stops out front, but she appreciates the location nonetheless.

“Others do, I know it’s close,” Sproule said.

Sproule initially found her way to Cool Aid’s Mike Gidora building, which offered support that she needed after life proved too difficult on her own.

“I was living above the George and Dragon [Fernwood Inn], it was nice, but I had growing mental health [troubles]… it was too much ” Sproule said.

Life at the Mike Gidora wasn’t as supported, but it also has a tricky set of offset stairs that Sproule, and other tenants, have trouble adjusting to.

“I don’t know how many times I fell down,” she said.

In her working life, she was a bartender, one of the first women to carve a career out of it in Victoria. The George and Dragon, Royal Oak Inn, Strathcona and Cherry Bank Lounge. It was a different time.

“I can’t even watch TV anymore, it’s too much to take in,” she said. “I’m glad I don’t have cable hooked up.”

With a big smile, and a very relaxed demeanour, Sproule is happy and a fun person to be around. She’s open about her mental health struggles but is also guarded, in a calculating way. She admits the battle with mental health is away from people, a hidden disease.

“I hope the song brings awareness to mental health,” Sproule said. “I just want to be an example [for people living with mental health]. I see myself as a survivor and hoping this video will prove that to people.”

reporter@saanichnews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathy Stinson, two things Thursday AM.

building have a slightly different profile of tenants, but with a focus on Saanich.

 

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