"We've been waiting a long time for this": Turning Leaf moves into new home

Turning Leaf Support Service's new Roseberry Street space has private rooms for counselling, a kitchen area for people to eat and washrooms with showers for vulnerable people to wash up.

A local non-profit providing crisis intervention and treatment services for vulnerable people hopes its new home will help transform the work it does.

Turning Leaf Support Services moved into its new home on Roseberry Street Thursday.

The organization provides intervention and treatment services for people with intellectual challenges and mental illness.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Barkley Engel, Turning Leaf founder and CEO.

The new, 18,000 square-foot space has private rooms for counselling, a kitchen area for people to eat and even washrooms with showers for vulnerable people to bathe and stock up on hygiene products.

Engel said while Turning Leaf’s other locations offer services like cooking classes and money management skills, the new space offers something different.

“This is a place where people come not necessarily to learn skills, but to heal,” Engel said. “Every corner of this place was designed intentionally to serve vulnerable and marginalized people.”

Turning Leaf also collaborated with Elder Delvina Kejick to create a new teepee for the space’s garden.

Turning Leaf also collaborated with Elder Delvina Kejick to create a new teepee for the space’s garden.

Engel said he hopes it will help its Indigenous community members feel welcome and accepted.

“It’s a really important addition to us, mostly because we, like many other places, many other helping organizations, are on their own path to truth and reconciliation. That’s part of our commitment to it. We want to make sure that Indigenous people feel welcome here,” Engel said.