Category Archives: Homeless

Homeless, Municipal

Eradicating Homelessness … why not in Abbotsford?

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For my mental health we left Kamloops and the conference on community supported housing for the homeless and people with addictions, without attending the final session. The person I was travelling with felt that letting me sit through the panel: “Kamloops in Action: How to eradicate homelessness in Kamloops” would severely depress me. I am not sure if he was more worried about my mental state or facing the long drive back to Abbotsford with a severely depressed travelling companion. He was right though, listening to all the progress and positive things going on in Kamloops would have been depressing for anyone in the audience facing a return to the current status quo in Abbotsford.

As conferences are, this one was opened on Wednesday by a local politician, the mayor of Kamloops Terry Lake. As I expected, based on experience with conferences on housing in Abbotsford, Kamloop’s Mayor Terry Lake started out by laying out the tax and cash realities of municipal, provincial and federal governments. But from there … these fiscal realities were not used as an excuse for doing nothing nor for pointing the finger and stating “it was the responsibility of more senior levels of government to address these issues”. Rather than see fiscal reality as an excuse to do nothing, Mayor Lake and his council see fiscal reality as requiring them to form partnerships with provincial and federal governments in order to obtain the needed funds.

This attitude no doubt explains why it is that the City of Kamloops with a population of 80,376 (2006 census) has received millions of $dollars$ in provincial and federal funding; has completed housing projects, has housing projects under way, has a ground-breaking for a new project about to take place, has a new project to preserve affordable housing stock sitting there awaiting the City facilitating the right partnerships; why BC Housing is anxious to work more with and provide more funding to Kamloops; Kamloops is attracting so much money for affordable housing projects.

Such clear evidence that the only reason that Abbotsford, with its population of 123,864 versus Kamloops 80,376 (2006 census) does not have millions of $dollars$ to invest in affordable housing projects is that Abbotsford’s elected officials are to lazy or to bumbling to get off their keisters and perform the ridiculously simple task required to get those millions of $dollars$ of funding – ask – is depressing.

Undoubtedly Abbotsford City Hall and Council will claim “its not that simple”. The reality is that yes, it is pretty much that simple. It is really no more difficult for a municipality to secure funding for homeless housing initiatives than it is for a municipality to secure funding for capital projects undertaken by the municipality. I admit that Abbotsford City Council has demonstrated itself to be challenged in the area of capital grants/funding, but the successes of Langley, Chilliwack, Kamloops etc. demonstrate that this is quite doable. Kamloops demonstrates funding is not a function of size but of the fight, the leadership in the City Council.

Throughout the conference attendees were going up to Kamloop’s city councillors (yes there were Kamloop’s city councillors who attended the entire conference) and seeking their advice about getting housing projects up and funded. Boggles the mind does it not, people seeking city councils advice on a matter because of council’s demonstrated ability on any matter? Kamloops City Council is not arguing about the extent of homelessness, researching, awaiting a report from planning or social advisory committees reports. Kamloops City Council is working on “Kamloops in Action: How to eradicate homelessness in Kamloops”.

Sitting through the panel session, listening to Kamloops city council on eliminating homelessness, listening to the litany of all that had been accomplished, was being planned and would be accomplished in Kamloop’s would have been very, very depressing. To know that the only true reason progress is NOT occurring in Abbotsford, but is being made in communities all around us and around the province, is a lack of leadership and will. To know that with leadership we could have BC Housing fund the purchase and renovation of the housing stock in the Fraser Valley Inn, a start.

At least the next time city council begins to claim there is nothing they can do, we have merely to demand: “If Kamloop’s and others can accomplish all this, why can you accomplish nothing but excuses? Some leadership please.”

Homeless

Victoria’s Homeless Report

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Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness T
The City of Victoria released its homelessness report on October 19. http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/tskfrc_brcycl.shtml

High Cost of Inaction
http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/tskfrc_brcycl_inactn.pdf
From the report. Reference citations are provided for these figures.

  • It costs taxpayers more than $50,000 per year to support each homeless resident in British Columbia.
  • With a homeless population growth factor estimated at 30 per cent, compounded for each year of inadequate housing stock and supports, Victoria’s homeless population could double by 2010.
  • The Victoria Police Department has identified a group of 324 homeless residents—many of whom are mentally ill and suffer from substance use problems or a dual diagnosis—who are responsible for 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at a cost of $9.2 million to the City of Victoria.
  • The City of Victoria has spent over $1.4 million already this year in expenditures associated with homelessness; including clean-up costs, needle pick-up, damages to sensitive ecosystems, security and responses to complaints.
  • Without proper access to health services, homeless residents rely on emergency and acute care health services—66 per cent of all homeless residents admitted to hospital by Vancouver Island Health Authority have a mental health or substance use related condition.
  • The Task Force found that there are over 200 organizations in the Greater Victoria area currently engaged in addressing the needs of homeless, addicted and/or mentally ill people in our community. Over 20 funding agencies already spend an estimated $76 million annually on housing, mental health and addiction services.
  • By not addressing the needs of the homeless population in Greater Victoria, we are spending at least $62 million in other services, such as policing, prisons, hospital services, emergency shelter, clean up, etc.
  • A study conducted by the province of B.C. in 2001 showed that the cost of service use under the status quo was 33 per cent higher than the cost of housing and supporting individuals.

Help for the homeless
$7.6 million pledged to help deal with homelessness, mental illness, addictions
Carolyn Heiman
Victoria Times Colonist
Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Vancouver Island Health Authority will supply $7.6 million for measures to ease Victoria’s homeless crisis, including new detox beds and specialized outreach teams.

The announcement was made yesterday, moments after the unveiling of the City of Victoria task-force report “Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness”, aimed at finding ways to reduce the number of people living on the street.

The largest chunk of cash is earmarked for 15 adult detox/residential treatment beds ($1.7 million) and creation of four community/treatment outreach teams, at a cost of $3.35 million. The teams, a cornerstone recommendation of the task force, will offer support and treatment for clients where they live, be that in parks, on the street, in shelters or in supportive housing.

A “housing-first” strategy, in which priority is given to finding homes for people on the street, regardless of their mental-health and substance-abuse issues, is the other cornerstone of the recommendations.

The outreach teams, to be established in the next year, are to include mental-health, substance-abuse and social-service specialists with shared caseloads and low staff-to-client ratios. They will be on call 24 hours a day. One team will focus on individuals with significant criminal records and a history of behavioural problems.

The expert panel on the task force said similar outreach teams were credited with reducing hospital admissions in Ontario by 62 per cent after one year, and 83 per cent after six years.

Victoria police found that 324 homeless residents — many with mental-illness or substance-abuse problems or both — were behind 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at an estimated cost to the city of $9.2 million.

Supporting the teams will be two new case managers assigned to help those leaving the hospital and correctional facilities, at a cost of $200,000.

Dr. Perry Kendall, provincial health officer and chairman of the expert panel, said the current system for delivering services is complex and difficult to negotiate, especially for people with mental illness and substance-abuse problems. Because they’re required to move from one service to another, they often fall through the cracks. He noted a study of injection-drug users showed that half had obtained treatment in the previous year, while 30 per cent tried unsuccessfully to obtain treatment.

The health authority also earmarked $1 million toward building the $4.6-million Downtown Health Access Centre, a Victoria Cool Aid Society project planned for its Johnson Street building. The centre will provide one-stop health services to homeless people. It replaces a program that Cool Aid board chairman Andrew Benson said is “bursting at the seams” at its Swift Street location.

Benson said he is pleased with the VIHA commitment but anxiously awaiting word on applications for another $1.5 million from the province and $500,00 to $700,000 from the Capital Regional District before construction can begin in March. The balance would be raised through donations.

A home and day detox program will receive $240,000, while a similar amount will go to train 10 homeless people who are ready to rejoin the workforce for jobs with the health authority.

The funding announcement also earmarked $600,000 to help the hard-to-house homeless, who will take up residence at a new 45-bed facility on Pandora Street. The facility, run by Our Place Society, is scheduled to open in November.

Kendall said the current system lacks co-ordination between mental-health and addiction services. Clients trying to obtain mental-health services are often rejected because they have addictions, while the same is true for those with mental-health problems trying to obtain addiction services.

VIHA yesterday earmarked $100,000 to train outreach workers to support clients with both mental-health and addiction problems.

cheiman@tc.canwest.com

Hmmm, Homeless

Why is it…

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… that the church groups who serve lunch to the homeless on Sundays during the noon hour are both congregations without their own church building? Hillside, the group that serves on the first Sunday of the month, meets in a school and the Open Door who cover the other 40 Sundays meet at Bethel Reformed. As an aside, I would like to tip my hat to Bethel Reformed for their generosity of spirit, for this is not the only group from the community they make their church available to.

I posed this question to Pastor Cristoph Reiners from Peace Lutheran Church who I met through a friend. His reply was thoughtful (read
writings of his at (www.plc-abby.org) and had me thinking that the City would benefit spiritually if his thoughtful writing could be shared more with Abbotsford’s citizens.

Today is the first Sunday of the month and the good folks from Hillside were there with a hearty pasta/spaghetti meal and a larger coffee urn they had acquired because of the demand for coffee by the homeless – especially as the weather gets wet and cold. They also brought HOME-BAKED cookies!

I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a member of this group about the difficultly I am having in finding suitable housing, when the conversation turned to the August long weekend. I had written about Hillside not being there on that weekend and it was not until the labour day long weekend I had found out they had indeed passed along the fact they would not be there that August Sunday and apologized for my misjudgment. Those they told failed to either make other arrangements or to tell anyone that Hillside would not be there.

I explained this misunderstanding to my friend, again verbally apologizing, then decided this is one of those situations where as a child learning proper manners and conduct my parents would have required I sent a written not of apology. I felt this needed a written public apology as amends. I extend sincere apologies and a big thank you. The members of Hillside should know that the homeless look forward with great anticipation (and drooling) to the meals.

There were two other points of interest that emerged from this conversation I want to bring forward for consideration.

The first was that this ongoing serving of meals grew out of looking for a Love Abbotsford project. Instead of joining all the other churches in overwhelming the hungry with food for one day, they chose to serve an ongoing need for food on Sunday. It is unfortunate that other churches did not follow this example, but perhaps that is related to the second point.

The second point arose when we were speaking of an offer to meet some small specific needs. This underscored the need I see for a place that those interested in being part of ending homelessness can go to offer/do what they can. My friend used the image from a recent piece of mine – that of individual drops of rain wearing away the mountain of homelessness. What we need is a place the drops can to pool together and be directed to wearing the mountain at its softest points.

Two congregations without church buildings; Peace Lutheran a small church that has offered to help in the small ways they can …

The other part of the question I posed to Pastor Reiners was: what is it that causes congregations as they grow large in size to invest in bigger buildings and more pastors, rather than in the people in need in their community.

Bringing forth the thought: at what point does an ever bigger, an ever fancier, ever more costly building become a graven image?

Consider, Homeless, Poverty

Convenient concern for the homeless and poor.

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“Where was your concern for our low-income families then”?

This comment from a recent newspaper column took me back to a very similar thought I had while reading the editorial pages of all the local papers and finding letter after letter denouncing slots because “they are hard on/bad for the poor”. I was left sadly shaking my head at such blatantly self-serving morally objectionable behaviour.

I do mean to christen as immoral those who are concerned for those in need only when it is convenient or serves their self-interest and ignore those in need when it could inconveniently required effort or even (shudder) some small sacrifice or there is no self-interest to be served by being concerned for the well-being of the poor.

Immorality: something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice (American Heritage Dictionary).

Week in and week out papers were filled with letters about how bad for the poor slots would be, a vast outpouring of concern for the poor to the papers and to council. Before or after the slots debate?

Precisely.

Homeless

Starbucks Sunday

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It was Starbucks Sunday at lunch today. Once a month the Sumas Way (near the Super 8) Starbucks provides coffee to the Open Door Church to serve with the lunch the church provides. Not only do we get the high octane of Starbucks but there is lots of coffee for seconds and thirds. On a cool rainy day such as today was, hot coffee puts a nice warm glow in your stomach.

I would be most remiss if I did not mention Cobs Bread and their weekly donation to the Open Door of bakery goods for the sandwiches they make. In particular I must mention the occasional special treat that comes in the form of leftover sweet items mmmmmmmmmmmmm. For an epicurean delight of the baked goods variety I can attest to the tastiness of our local Cobs and to their generosity in giving support to different groups the other six days of the week as well.

Although I must acknowledge that Costco’s Kirkland brand of apple caramel pie and shortbread cookies are pretty tasty, especially when hunger has sharpened the appetite and being homeless in the cold and wet weather has your body demanding extra fuel, extra calories, to burn for warmth.

A community often does not see all the little ways that franchisees and corporate citizens contribute to the community not just through big dollar donations but in the day to day, month to month contributions to local groups like the Open Door Seventh Day Adventists who use this generosity in order that there might be a little less hunger stalking the streets and homeless of Abbotsford.

So give Cobs bread a try, the great flavour is well worth the trip and take time to tell them “that homeless guy who writes all those letters and other stuff” said to say thank you for being generous and helping feed the hungry. If you get the chance, tell management at Costco “good job” for giving back to our community.

Swing by the Sumas Way Starbucks and say thank you as a citizen of Abbotsford for being part of the community. You might also want to work into the conversation a suggestion that since that is the favourite Starbucks of “that homeless guy who writes all that stuff” they might want to consider donating a Venti or two a day to fueling his fingers ….

Thank you to these and to all the businesses that give back to the community through their generosity, from homlelessinabbotsford and the many others who benefit from and appreciate their kindness and thoughtfulness.