Category Archives: Homeless

Homeless

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Another luxury I always took for granted was having a safe place to leave my ‘stuff’. This point was driven home when a friend, who was staying at the Salvation Army shelter where they require people to take their belongings with them when they leave for the day, heard that the Rail Road Police had given the acquaintance she was storing her stuff with during the day a limited time to move his camp. Shortly after this I saw someone pushing a shopping cart full of his belongings along and recalled the fellow I had met just a short while ago, who had been displaced when the brick plant downtown decided to level the patch of bush he was camped in, pushing his salvaged belongings along in a shopping cart. Later in the same day I saw my acquaintance pushing a shopping cart of her stuff along to the place of a friend who had offered to store it for her. The picture most of us associate with those we see pushing a shopping cart full of stuff along is that they are crazy in some way or another – a favourite depiction of television and films. Now, I do not claim that all these people are the mentally healthiest; after all I admit I found myself in my current circumstances due to mental health issues, just that using a shopping cart is an entirely reasonable choice under the circumstances. It is just that society has decided to attach a stigma to this mode of transporting your belongings. Once you are homeless you do not, as a general rule, have a lot of possessions and your time on the street tends to whittle what you have down even further. Remember that at this time of year extra clothing and bedding can be important to you living through the night. If you do not want to chance losing it you need someplace safe to store it or a way to carry it with you. Carrying requires something with room for your belongings and an easy way to move it. Hmmm? Wheels, big basket, rack, and a handle for pushing it – sounds like just what is needed – sounds like a shopping cart.

Now I can think of several different approaches to filling this need for safe storage that do not require large cash outlays, only the goodwill to want to address the need. The real point here is that the next time you see a ‘crazy’ person pushing a shopping cart remember that it is an intelligent response to that person’s situation and needs. If you want to cut down on the number of people pushing shopping carts and various other contraptions full of their belongings around town, you need to be as intelligent in your response to the situation. Address not the effect (the shopping carts etc) but the cause – the need for storage. I have, all too often, seen ill considered responses to issues related to or raised by homelessness increase the problem or worsen some other aspect of it. Knocking down the bush to move the homeless along = more homeless sleeping in the open on the streets. Answers are easy – it is asking the right questions that requires intelligent thought and achieves results by addressing the root causes, not just symptoms.

Homeless, Municipal

Dear Gordon Campbell:

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I have spent the last several years working on recovering my mental health after mental illness literally consumed my life. With hard work my recovery has progressed to the point that I enjoy the best mental health and balance of my life.

Imagine then my dismay and alarm at your government’s assault on my mental health. Words are inadequate to express fully my feelings concerning this assault on common sense and thought – but I will strive to convey to some understanding.

Having been forced to deal with the mind numbing, irrational bureaucracy, the immense waste of taxpayer dollars and the insanity of repeating over and over actions and programs that clearly fail to help people in need, rather than adopting best practices demonstrated to reduce homelessness and other social ills during my recovery – I was able to cope with the stupidity and waste by sharing the insanity through my written words.

But your government’s new and increasing offensive against good governance, fiscal responsibility and plain common sense poses a severe threat to my hard won mental health.

The government’s desire to prevent the international story of the Vancouver Winter Olympics from being the contrast of the shinny new facilities for rich citizens games and entertainment with the squalor of the increasing numbers of the poor (many with jobs providing service to the rich), mentally ill and addicted homeless living on the winter streets of the lower mainland is OK.

It matters not that it is fear of bad press and disturbing images flowing around the world as the world focuses on the Winter Olympics that causes desperately needed funds to flow, rather than caring.

What matters is that there are funds available to begin to end homelessness and associated social ills.

What is unacceptable is that it appears that the government intends to spend these funds in the same ineffective, wasteful and pointless manner of current programs and behaviours whose only accomplishment is to have increased homelessness and poverty and.

What rational sane person could possibly imagine that if a program is doing nothing to decrease homelessness, that running that program more hours a day, even all day long, is going to do anything but spend more money to accomplish the same failure? Only a government bureaucrat or politician could believe thus.

If a program or behaviour does nothing, then doing more of the same behaviour will accomplish nothing but to waste money better spent on practices that have demonstrated their effectiveness elsewhere. We need to embrace change, to accept the risks that come with making changes and act with deliberation and rational thought.

What next? Reach back into history for other failed government responses to problems with a specific class or group of people? Plans for the internment camps for the Japanese people still exist. The government could build camps out in the Fraser valley and ship the homeless et al out to interment for the period leading up to and during the 2010 Winter Games.

If we want to avoid the story and images of BC and the Winter Olympics that people around the world get from being the poor, mentally ill and addicted suffering and wandering winter streets of Vancouver, Whistler, Abbotsford and throughout the province the rational approach is to end homelessness, not to attempt paper over or hide the problem.

We need to champion an end to homelessness. We need to provide leadership to bring about the changes in policies and behaviours necessary to end homelessness.

I want to close by sharing the story that caused me to sit down and write this plea for my sanity, the end to the insane behaviour of our government and a change to rational behaviour on homelessness.

There was a call placed from an agency Vancouver inquiring if there were emergency shelter beds available for a woman client – in Abbotsford. They were going to ship her out of Vancouver to a city where she had no support and would in a matter of days be back out on the streets.

We have a problem of homelessness. Rather than continuing to ignore it, to hide it or dump it on someone else we could try a very novel approach – ending homelessness.

Homeless, Municipal

Recovery House Policy

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First let me make it clear we do need a recovery house policy that makes sure any place called a “recovery house” provides an environment that helps, not hinders or endangers, the recovery of its residents – in the same manner that homes for mental health provide an mentally healthy environment for residents mental health recovery. I have seen the damage that going to a bad recovery house can cause someone seeking actual recovery, putting them right back into their addiction.

Second remember that recovery houses as they exist now are as much about the market response to the demand for affordable (within welfare housing allowances) housing as they are to the demand for “recovery” spaces. Thus it is that you have many houses that are full of people still in their addictions – the “bad” recovery houses.

Finally understand that based on conversation, observation and experience I believe that if we really want to be effective in “recovery” from addiction we need to view addiction recovery much more along the lines of recovery from mental illness – a much longer term (years) process requiring more support and programs. Economics means that recovery houses do not have the cash flow to provide these supports and services. Psalm 23 is along those lines but it survives only through fund raising and if you had all the recovery houses fund raising ….. We need to seriously overhaul the system we currently use to deliver “recovery” in the addiction field.

So I do think we need a policy so a “recovery house” is just that, it also needs to be formulated on sound economics and reality.

In fact the type of system I envision would need “recovery houses” as part of the delivery system of recovery.

However from the beginning I have stated that we need to face reality – many if not most recovery beds are flop house beds. Clean up those beds/houses and shut them down and you put the people on the streets – do it quickly and you flood the streets.

Currently we have new faces hitting the streets every day, and old faces are not disappearing fast enough – in fact many old faces keep returning again and again even through/after treatment. So it looks like it is going to be a miserable winter with demand far exceeding resources or available spaces. Dump all those in closed recovery houses on the street and you go from very bad to ?? – I do not know what you would call it chaos, disaster?

So ever since this question was first addressed I have stated fine close them down – but be sensible/face reality and figure out where you will put them once you close them or all you are really doing is making a very bad situation worse.

I would say the first thing council needs to do is take its head out of the sand (or where ever they have stuck it) and see/face reality. Mr. Smith and council have been told from the first that they need to have in place a plan AND A PLACE for handling/putting those they displace from the closed houses. I remember writing this same comment about the closure of the Fraser Inn, to the same deaf ears – and many if not most of the residents of the Inn are still on the streets – in Abbotsford. The streets of Abbotsford are much more crowded these days and Mr Smith and council seem happy just to toss more people onto the streets.

Council has to accept that this is not a nice neat situation (after all it is a people problem and involves people) with no fast, neat, easy solutions. There is no easy, nobody screaming at you magic solution for them to use. The Provincial and Federal government need to get real about this as well. Or you end up with “hide the problem and pretend to be doing something” polices such as the recent shelter open 24 hour policy announcement. All that does is have man homeless stay inside all day, out of sight out of mind – until the growing ranks of homeless numbers increase so that even if everyone with a bed stays in – you cannot tell because so many homeless are on the streets.

We have to reduce the numbers which means new ideas, new approaches, using the knowledge out there – and we have the know how to do a much better/successful job of getting people off the street, into recovery and back onto their feet, it means accepting that it is not going to be nice neat and tidy or painless.

The biggest lack at any level of government on homelessness is leadership. But no politician wants to deal with such a complex messy problem – could cause re-election problems and re-election is what it is all about – not solving anything. If you just do the same you can always blame the party in power before you – if you take the needed new actions and approaches, you take ownership of the situation – and what politician wants to do that, no badly how needed. Talk is far cheaper and easier and you do not have to have any faith in your ability to handle complex, chaotic situations.

The city profligate spending has left them little money for even such a pressing problem. Unfortunately they seem as lacking in leadership as they are in funds.

The city needs to show leadership. Take the lead. Say to the province and federal governments “this is what we need, this is what we are going to do – show us the money. And go after politicians at the higher levels to put in place and develop the needed programs and resources. And it needs to make some unpopular decisions such as where and what building (school? old hospital?) to use for sheltering the homeless and those still their addiction. That way you have the recovery houses for those seeking/in recovery

I have a lot of experience with programs/resources in Abbotsford and I think with leadership and innovation we have great and solid base to begin to address this/these issues. Triangle resources, Communitas, Fraser Mental Health, church and charity programs, people. We can accomplish a lot – we just have to start. And government has to get out of denial, out of the way, become part of the solution instead of worsening the situation and senior levels need to provide funding, resources and the political will to put a ten year plan to end homelessness into action. Ten years form now we can have a solution (very little homelessness) or a bigger problem.

Homeless

Addiction or Why this Issue Sucks.

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Alas, poor Fred! I knew him, fellow SCN readers: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: before these tragic circumstances befell the now lost soul:

Addict: a person who is addicted to an activity, habit, or substance: a drug

addict (verb used with object); to cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on an addictive substance, as alcohol or a narcotic; to habituate or abandon (oneself) to something compulsively or obsessively.

Video game addiction, also called video game overuse, is a form of psychological addiction composed of a compulsive use of computer and video games. Sometimes the addiction will manifest itself as part of excessive Internet use.

Most notable are massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and related to Internet addiction disorder. Instances have been reported in which users play compulsively, isolating themselves from social contact and focusing almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than life events.

WebMD: At an addiction treatment center in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, teenagers and adults begin detox by admitting they are powerless over their addiction. But these addicts aren’t hooked on drugs or alcohol. They are going cold turkey to break their dependence on video games.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or multiplayer online role-playing games. Carl Jung

First he abandons his loyal readers, spending less and less time on SCN as feeding his addiction requires more and more time. Then it begins to affect his work as he becomes one of those undependable employees he recently decried in SCN.

Before long his poor roommate has to throw him out in favour of a roommate who works and can pay his share of the rent and the poor guy becomes one of the homeless, a member of that underclass that has graced the pages of SCN. The upper crust of that underclass as, like a turtle, he carries his home around with him as he drives from location to location to meet his needs.

Unfortunately it is his addiction that dictates his needs so instead of concentrating on employment and the path out of homelessness he focuses on finding internet connections to allow him to feed his habit.

Before long the car is gone as his focus tightens more and more on finding sources to satisfy his cravings, his addiction.

Living on the streets, hygiene challenged, soup kitchens for food – still his addiction drives him, consumes him, destroys him.

We loyal SCN readers need to stage an intervention to force Fred to confront his addiction, to encourage him to seek help in getting into recovery from his addiction.

STOP! THINK Fred: recall the sad state of those further along the path of addiction whose addictions had led them to homelessness and life on the streets. Reach within; find the strength to find help and recovery.

Addiction is a stone cold bitch whether to drugs, to work or to role playing games. Do not listen to the sweet siren song promising you Kingship of fantasy lands, lest ye continue down the path that leads to despair and utter hopelessness.

Take personal responsibility for you life and addiction, save yourself and find Wellness and Recovery. You have the strength Fred.

_____________________________________________________

post scriptum:

While written tongue-in-cheek there is a disturbing truth in what I wrote. Nobody says to themselves “I think I will become and addict” or “I think I will become homeless”. Addiction, mind altering substances, gambling, online gaming or work, is an all too easy downward slide whatever your starting point.

It is a sweet siren song luring you on until it is to late when it reveals its true nature as a stone cold bitch.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. Aesop

Fred’s original article that inspired this can be found at: http://www.somethingcool.ca/editor281.htm

Homeless

To get it done – simply do it.

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The young woman was sitting there obviously in a great deal of distress, profound pain and in need of help.

The distress and pain were so pronounced that it evoked an act of kindness out of an acquaintance of mine. The only adequate description of seeing this act is “it boggled my mind”. He also stated that something needed to be done.

Her behaviour/situation was brought to the attention of those who should be helping her … and resulted in excuses as to why they weren’t helping.

Leaving the realm of excuses I found the young woman huddled with arms wrapped around herself under a tree. Mr. L, a homeless gentleman residing in his vehicle, was standing there regarding her.

I approached her quietly and spoke with her gently and after a few minutes she uncurled and stood up. With quiet words Mr. L and I walked with her to his vehicle and drove her to MSA Hospital.

Escorting her into emergency we supported and advocated for her through the admissions process. The psychiatric evaluation nurse and the woman doctor on duty were excellent, but the process, for someone in her shape, was far too long and complicated.

We spent 3 hours helping and sitting with her before she was in the care of a nurse. In fact it took so long Mr. L and myself were beginning to worry that perhaps the delay was due to the psychiatric evaluation nurse searching for butterfly nets and straight jackets for the pair of us. We had to stay with her in order that she could stay and get the help needed.

How many others are left suffering great distress and profound pain?

Getting help should not depend on random chance putting someone in need in the path of two strangers who are willing to spend the hours and effort needed to get them help.

This is not the first time I have experienced politicians, government, agencies, organizations or people delivering a litany of excuses for their failure to act to help those in dire need.

It is so normal a behaviour I can remember how surprising and above all helpful it was when, at a Communitas program I was a client of, I was told that something needed was not part of the program – but let us figure out how to get it done – and it did get done.

The issues, the problems that are part of addressing homelessness, mental illness, addiction and poverty are complex and lack nice neat easy solutions. Nobody can guarantee success in addressing these issues.

I can guarantee failure as long as it is acceptable to come up with excuses for why something is not being done. Benjamin Franklin pointed out that “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

As Mr. L. and I demonstrated you can accomplish something or make excuses. To quote Stephen Dooley, Jr. “A man who wants to do something will find a way; a man who doesn’t will find an excuse.”

It is time we stop making excuses, stop accepting excuses and find ways to do what needs be done.