Camryn Rogers Finds a Place to Call Home
Story by Lauren Bentley
Photography by Rachel Pick
Camryn Rogers is the top female hammer thrower in Canada. This title was cemented when she took home gold at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. It was the first medal in women’s hammer throw for Canada and one of the few gold medals for women’s track and field for Canada—ever.
But her journey to the Olympic podium was far from easy.
Camryn was a pre-teen living in Surrey when her mom, Shari, realized she could no longer afford their mortgage, despite working more than full time as a hairdresser. She would have to sell their apartment.
For a year, Camryn and Shari, who was raising her daughter alone, experienced a reality for far too many British Columbians: housing insecurity. They couch-surfed, stayed with friends, and even slept in their car.
Shari tried to stay positive, for the both of them. But uncertainty permeated their lives. “It was a lot to go through as a teenager,” Camryn recalls. “I’m still impressed with all my mom did at that time. She was trying her very best.”
A primary place Camryn was able to channel her feelings of uncertainty was sport.
“I remember when I threw [a hammer] for the first time. I was 12, and I‘d never done a sport before,” she recalls. “I felt so empowered. It was one of the first times in my life that I really felt that sense of powerfulness. During that year of housing insecurity, I was able to use throwing as that outlet. It made me feel powerful at a time when we didn’t have control over certain things.”
Despite the difficulties, Shari encouraged her daughter. “She’d say we had to keep going because something good is coming,” Camryn recalls.
That good thing came in the form of a home: a townhouse in Dockside Village, a More Than a Roof community for families in Steveston. The location was perfect. Shari already worked in Steveston, and Camryn went to school nearby.
Camryn remembers that even when touring the unit that would become theirs, “it felt so warm and comfortable and inviting.” They moved in soon after.
“For so long, we didn’t have security or a safe environment. When we found out [we had a place at Dockside], it felt like we’d found somewhere to rebuild our lives together. It was everything for us.”
She recalls the relief of having a place to decompress after a difficult training session or long school day. The security of knowing she had a place to come home to.
Over her teenage years, the community at Dockside Village became more like a family.
When she came home from her first international competition in 2017, the entire community was outside, holding signs and cheering as she drove in.
“It’s hug to have a roof over your head, but it’s the people that truly make a place home,” she says. “Here we had so much support and love. That really enriched our experience.”
Shari and Camryn lived at Dockside for 10 years, over which Camryn became one of Canada’s elite athletes, training first in Richmond and then at UC Berkeley. In that time, Shari remarried, and recently the family was able to purchase a new home. For Camryn, her mom buying a house after all they’d been through is the end of an incredible journey they were able to take thanks to MTR.
“It’s hard to imagine what life would have been like if we hadn’t had More Than a Roof,” Camryn says. “It’s been one of the major foundational aspects of what we’ve been able to develop in our lives.”
“More Than a Roof gave us a second chance, it gave us a fighting chance. . . . And when you realize you’ve been given that chance, you can’t just let it go.”
Camryn certainly hasn’t. And when she returned to visit Dockside as an Olympic gold medalist, the community celebrated her as one of their own. “It still feels like home here,” she says.
“Everyone [at MTR] is fighting for a brighter future,” Camryn notes. “It’s made possible by secure housing. It’s made possible by having somewhere to come home to every night and call your own.”
Read the 2023-2024 Annual Impact Report
Community is a Solution
Kavita John on building connections that nurture new opportunities
Story by Lauren Bentley
Photography by Rachel Pick
It was 2017, and Kavita John was considering taking a new job: building manager of Lakepark Village, a family-oriented More Than A Roof community in Burnaby. Kavita, her husband, and their two young daughters had recently immigrated to Canada from India, and were still trying to find their footing.
“We moved with a lot of hopes and no concrete plans,” she says.
As they drove into the complex, a handful of kids who had been playing outside rushed up to their car, asking if her girls—then 7 and 11—wanted to join them.
“We couldn’t even stop the car before the girls were out the door, playing with complete strangers,” Kavita says. It was a small moment, but it told her something powerful: a real, thriving community was already being nurtured. Kavita took the job.
Doing more together
Kavita came to More Than a Roof with a core belief that communities are powerful.
“I see that community is a solution to any problem. It seems like a bold thing to say . . . but I firmly believe that in all situations, community is a powerful answer,” Kavita says.
While still living in India, Kavita helped rally her neighborhood to help upgrade a local park. Though it was a small project, the idea that people could create significant value from very little by working together stayed with her.
“It just rooted me in this firm belief that communities coming together can do so much.”
As a building manager, she lived out her conviction by connecting tenants with people and activities that would help them write the next chapter of their lives.
“The mindset I go into work with is that there is an abundance in all communities—the gifting, the resources, energies, passion, everything is already there,” she says. She sees her role as finding and activating these gifts, acting as a steward of relationships within the building.
Early on, for example, Kavita met a high school aged resident. A talented artist, the tenant was also extremely shy. Kavita asked her if she’d be willing to run an art camp for kids in the building. Though she was nervous, the young artist said yes.
The result was a 12-week art camp that brought the community together. “I supported her, but all the talent, energy, and action came from her,” Kavita recalls.
As a result of the skills she showed in planning and leading the camp, the tenant was awarded a full-ride Beedie scholarship and is about to graduate from UBC. Since then, at least five other young people have won full-ride scholarships from Lakepark with support from opportunities fostered within the community itself—some of whom never expected to go to university.
“Without safe, stable, excellent and affordable housing, none of these things are going to be possible,” she notes.
Writing her next chapter
Recently, Kavita took on a supervisory role overseeing a number of More Than a Roof communities.
She recognizes how formative her years managing Lakepark Village were. “I learned so much from the people living there. How they found a way to be outward looking, others focused, and joyous,” she says. “I left as a different person than when I started.”
Despite the change in title, her core mission—building community and connection—remains the same. “In this role, I am throwing myself into the opportunity to nurture the team so they can support our collective mission to provide housing with excellence and care. This is the foundation from which we can build connectedness and community.”
