{"id":233,"date":"2020-07-29T12:04:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T16:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socialwork\/?post_type=cu_people&p=233"},"modified":"2026-03-05T10:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T15:37:00","slug":"mary-martha-hale","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socialwork\/people\/mary-martha-hale\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary-Martha Hale"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Executive Director of Centre 454 (retired)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Social Work (\u201995), Master of Social Work (\u201997)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with many in the School of Social Work, Mary-Martha Hale already had a wealth of experience when she arrived in 1994.  After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in the 1970s, she had worked around the country: running a geriatric day hospital in Winnipeg, a women\u2019s shelter in Newfoundland and Labrador and staffing a call-in support line as the AIDS crisis was breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after working in many different capacities, Ms. Hale decided it was time to go back to university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI specifically wanted to go to Carleton because they teach the structural approach, which addresses societal structures that create prob\u00adlematic conditions,\u201d explains Ms. Hale. \u201cI remember sitting in a class that first term and thinking, \u2018I\u2019m in a room with 30 people who think like me, question like me and are prepared to challenge the status quo. This is what I\u2019ve been looking for!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Ms. Hale challenged the status quo in the School itself, encouraging her colleagues to consider spirituality when working with clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the early 1990s, it was a radical idea that one\u2019s spirituality was part of one\u2019s holistic world view,\u201d says Ms. Hale, who successfully lobbied for a course on spirituality in the School. \u201cI would ask [students] how they could ethically do their work and ignore an important part of a person\u2019s life, support system and well-being. Whether faith was a source of support or distress, it could be an underlying issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That worldview played an important role in Ms. Hale\u2019s career after earning her BSW and MSW. She applied for one job with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, but was offered a position as director of Centre 454 instead. It was the beginning of a 16-year period serving the homeless in downtown Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Centre provides a welcoming environment so people can access services like laundry, showers, counselling, referrals and housing support during the day,\u201d explains Ms. Hale. \u201cIt\u2019s in the basement of a church with a large garden, so it\u2019s like an oasis in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centre 454 spent 12 years in a different location that was closer to a number of the city\u2019s homeless shelters before returning to the church in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was pretty intense during that time. I can almost pinpoint the day that crack cocaine arrived in Ottawa in the spring of 2005,\u201d recalls Ms. Hale. \u201cIt was devastating. We saw people\u2019s lives destroyed. We worked to maintain as safe an environment as we could, but eventually decid\u00aded we needed to be one step removed from the centre of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After it was announced that the Centre was to return to a more resid\u00adential neighbourhood, some of the neighbours were opposed to it. Ms. Hale says over time the Centre has integrated into the neighbourhood smoothly, but she remained adamant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur participants have a right to services in their own neighbourhood,\u201d she argues. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in exclusive neighbourhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Hale also chaired the Alliance to End Homelessness, which shares many of the values of the School of Social Work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Alliance made the links between the struggles of individuals who were homeless to the major societal issues of poverty, health and homelessness,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it may have sounded like depressing work to outsiders, Ms. Hale didn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the total opposite. When you see people blossom in an environ\u00adment where they\u2019re valued and not being threatened with vio\u00adlence, it\u2019s energizing,\u201d says Ms. Hale. \u201cAnd when you\u2019re part of something that\u2019s greater than you and you see the resilience and strength and courage that people bring to their lives, it keeps you going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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