homelessness

Housing homeless tackled

Excellent op-ed in the Winnipeg Free Press by Sam Tsemberis and Vicky Stergiopoulos

In Canada, we conducted the largest randomized controlled trial of its kind in the world on homelessness by comparing housing-first to services as usual (the At Home/Chez Soi study) involving 2,255 participants who were homeless across five Canadian cities (Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver). The one-year results, recently reported by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, indicate HF is significantly more effective than services as usual in providing stable housing for people who had been homeless for years and who have complex clinical needs.

Also compelling was the finding that for every two government dollars invested in the HF program, $1 was saved. Savings were even greater for those who used services the most, with $3 saved for every $2 spent.

It’s no wonder the federal government supports housing-first: It is highly effective and can save money.

So Canada is on the right track. We have both funds and evidence-based policy for moving forward on homelessness. However, we still face two major hurdles in order to successfully meet a housing-first model.

First, the majority of programs currently funded across the country can be described as providing services for people who are homeless. Shelters, drop-in centres, and especially transitional or short-term housing programs must be helped to shift resources to programs that end homelessness instead. We will need to invest in providing training and consultation services to communities so they will obtain the guidance and support, timelines, and performance indicators necessary to move the system toward this new, much-needed direction.

The second hurdle concerns implementing housing-first programs so they are consistent with the basic principles of the model that achieved the outstanding outcomes in the At Home/Chez Soi study. Housing-first moves people rapidly from shelters or the streets into stable housing and provides evidence-based clinical and social supports to address social, mental-health, health, addiction, educational, employment issues and others. By providing services using a team approach and co-ordinating housing, clinical and social supports, this model reduces problems associated with fragmentation of services and improves inter-sectoral collaboration that usually plagues individuals and families seeking treatment.

In other words, housing-first, if implemented properly will transform public services across the country as we know them, and to do this effectively, teams will need adequate support and guidance to do so.

The Weeklies

Apr 29th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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In the Denver suburbs, as in much of the U.S., the Great Recession turned formerly stable families into the new homeless—and left many living in budget hotels.

At any given time, roughly 20 to 40 guests are staying long term. Since they pay by the week, they call themselves “weeklies.” To score the cheap rates, $210 for individuals and slightly more for families, they must pay in advance. Residents sign a form that lists the activities that could get them kicked out (mostly involving drugs) and warns that they won’t get reimbursed if they leave early, no exceptions. Some families stay only for a few weeks, some for months, giving the hotel the feeling of a dormitory. A rotating cast of front-desk clerks sells candy and rations towels and washcloths. Though some of the clerks are kind and helpful, the guests think of them as enforcers, and the clerks tend to treat the weeklies less as customers than as undergraduates stealing toilet paper and sneaking in hot plates.

With its 121 rooms, cleaning service, and keycards, the place is not a fleabag. But it is also not the kind of hotel where the coffee pots and hair dryers reliably work or the comforters match the drapes. A traveler stopping here to avoid bad weather might notice the difference: a clerk who takes a little too long to offer grudging help, an absence of name tags for the staff, an empty spot on the placard that is supposed to provide the manager’s name, a stained lobby carpet, a guest or two with a slightly illicit aura.

Hotels have always served people who need an off-the-record place to live—sex workers, drug dealers—and the Ramada has its share of people who are hiding out. (Bounty hunters come to the hotel so often that the weeklies know their names and say hi.) But in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the Ramada’s clientele shifted away from such regulars to include suburban families who had been used to staying in hotels only on vacations. Many of the families still had incomes. Some had long been struggling members of the working class, fighting to stay better than broke; others had fallen suddenly out of the middle class.

Across the country, suburban poverty rose by more than half in the first decade of the new century. Families now find themselves navigating landscapes that were built around wealth: single-family houses that are sold, not rented; too few apartment buildings; and government agencies hidden at the far edge of the suburban ring, more responsive to trash-pickup complaints than rising hunger rates.

I think this article actually made me experience and emotion and cry. Read the entire story and it will break your heart.

A better way to say goodbye

Apr 25th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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I was 12 when I first attended my first funeral. We had a friend at a nursing home and Mr. Crawford lived next door. We would go and visit our family friend and see him each time where he was quite nice to all of us, often giving me some money for candy and to get a coffee for my mom.

When he died, we went to the funeral chapel where his family went on at length about how horrible of human being he was and what a bad father he had been. We just listened but I was shocked when the minister started his eulogy with, “He was a very bad man”.

When I became a pastor, I did a lot of funerals. Some of them were celebrations of life, others were horrible to perform and yes, I buried some really bad men over the years. Each time I tried my best to respect the person and life that I was burying while keeping some sense of reality of the life they lived.

In the work I do now, our clients die very young. The drugs, violence, lifestyle and alcohol takes it toll on your body. Toss in HIV/Aids/Hep-C or cancer from the smoking and you have a really low life expectancy. I have helped more than one mother clean out a locker in a shelter where the only thing she has left of her son was a pair of jeans, a jacket, and really nothing else. I have always found myself hoping that there be something of value in there, a watch or a something of value for the parent to hold on to but there never is. Many tears have been shed by family members during those times.

In most situations I find myself boxing stuff up and realizing that for the most part, no one was going to come get it. Months later my janitor asks me what I want him to do with the sealed box. No one has come to get it.

Every couple of months I hear that a client that I had worked with has died. In each and every case I fire up my computer and Google their name. I search The StarPhoenix’s obituary website and I scour the internet to find out if it is true. I rarely find anything. Over the next couple of days I generally run into a member of the Saskatoon Health Region or the Saskatoon City Police and ask them. In every case I get the same reply that they have died.

They often die alone. There is no media coverage, no obituary, no will, no assets, and to be honest, almost no one cared. Many colleagues just block it out like it doesn’t exist. The file is closed and they are done. Death has never bothered me, neither does the grieving process but in these cases I find myself not sure what to do. The idea that someone has lived their entire life and there is no trace of it left seems wrong to me.

I guess as a blogger and a writer, I find myself in a situation where I write to process. After a sleepless night last night thinking of a couple of people that I had known well that had died, I came in early to work to write something, anything about their lives as I saw them. Of course I never know what do next. I tweeted this morning that I was struggling with his and it resonated with people but I don’t know what to do next.

Is the best way to mark one’s life to have a service provider eulogize them? My first encounter with one gentleman was when he assaulted Wendy with a bottle of Listerine she wouldn’t sell him in about 1998. Of course the other part of that story is that he would beat her at cribbage all of the time when she helped out at a drop-in centre. Do you tell the stories of abuse, residential schools, the people that they hurt.

One of the people that recently deceased was a women that I wrote about two years ago in The StarPhoenix. She had AIDS at the time, was pimped out by her boyfriend and was high for every single interaction that I had with her over seven years. At the same time I appreciated every single strung out conversation we ever had and I was saddened and sickened when I would see her beaten and bruised. It’s weird but I miss her.

They had a legacy with me and we have a bunch of stories that shaped me that are too bizarre to write here (somethings are only funny if you know the person)

The world doesn’t stop for death. When you die, people come together, tell some stories, each some sandwiches, sing some hymns, and drink some coffee. I am not asking the world to stop, I just think they should have some form of legacy.

In Toronto, they have a homeless memorial. In Saskatoon we have a walk to remember those lost in the sex trade but at the end of the day they were individuals that lived and died in our city, it would be great if they are remembered as such. The question for me to figure out, what is the best way to do that.

Tech entrepreneur is converting retired city buses into showers for the San Francisco homeless

Apr 22nd, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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I don’t know if I find this encouraging or depressing.

San Francisco is teeming with tech entrepreneurs who want to save the world but who’ll pass by the homeless person on the street without a second glance.

Doniece Sandoval, a Bay Area tech entrepreneur, is not one of them. Her latest trick? Turning retired city buses into mobile showers for the homeless. The initiative, known as Lava Mae, is a response to a desperate need in the city. According to the most recent count, more than 6,500 homeless people sleep on the street or in shelters in San Francisco, and there are only eight shower facilities specifically available to the homeless, and most of these have just one or two stalls and aren’t open every day.

I love the idea but I find the homeless number of 6,500 people more than a little depressing. The idea of showers and facilities for the homeless has also been done quite well in Seattle at Urban Rest Stops.

The Urban Rest Stop (URS) is a hygiene center providing free restrooms, showers and laundry facilities to homeless men, women and children within a clean, safe and dignified environment. The URS has five private shower rooms, 9 washer and 14 dryer units, and large men’s and women’s restrooms. Patrons receive free toiletries including toothbrushes, toothpaste, disposable razors, shaving cream, shampoo and soap. Patrons may borrow overalls while they wash their clothes.

Video: @home: Housing First

Apr 16th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Homeless Edmontonians speak about impact of residential schools

Mar 25th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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This video is heartbreaking.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada paid a visit to the Boyle Street Community Services in Edmonton on Saturday.

As Nicole Weisberg reports, the commission has been gathering stories about the impact of residential schools on Aboriginal Peoples across Canada — but this is the first time it has visited Edmonton’s inner city.

This is what progress looks like

Mar 13th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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A video by the Calgary Homeless Foundation about the progress being made at year 4 of their 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. Great stuff.

Framing Housing First

Mar 13th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Excellent video explaining Housing First by the fine folks at the Calgary Homeless Foundation. Framing Housing First presents a 360 degree look at the concept through voices of people in the community, those working front lines, agency, corporate and government , volunteers and those who are now living in community

Eva’s Phoenix

Mar 6th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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The video quality is poor but this is a great view of what is happening at Eva’s Phoenix

The Real Cost of Homelessness

Mar 4th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Cost of homelessness infographic

Do What You Say You Do to Make the System Work

Feb 5th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Exactly what he said.

15 Things to STOP Doing in 2013 to End Homelessness

Feb 5th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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The Cost of Homelessness in Vancouver

Jan 26th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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While the content of this video is compelling and the data is sound, I was most impressed with how it was presented. The video is worth a watch. It’s a story of heartbreak and hope.

Edmonton targets ‘frequent flyers’

Jan 26th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Edmonton targets the top 50 users of it’s social services for housing

A new project spearheaded by the Edmonton Police Service will target the top 50 heavy users of the city’s police, medical and inner-city services. The project is aimed at better co-ordinating efforts among the agencies that work the most with the city’s chronically homeless.

“Without looking at specifics here, we’re finding we’re all talking about the same people,” police Chief Rod Knecht told the Journal this week. “The same people we’re arresting 50 times a year are the same people that are being transported by the ambulance 50 times a year, same people in the emergency ward, same people the shelters are dealing with.”

The key, Knecht says, is to focus on these so-called frequent flyers who place such a heavy burden on resources and fill the gaps in service.

“We think there’s a better way to keep them out of the system. It’s costing a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of effort,” he said.

A chronically homeless person costs the system about $100,000 per year, according to a presentation at Thursday’s police commission meeting by Jay Freeman, the executive director of the Edmonton Homeless Commission. By comparison, a person helped off the street and given the necessary support to stay housed costs taxpayers about $35,000 per year, Freeman said in his presentation.

Each year, police receive around 35,000 calls for service related to the city’s homeless, mentally ill and addicted populations, Knecht said. Each one of those calls takes an average of 104 minutes to complete.

“I think, if we do this properly, we’ll actually save money,” Knecht said. “And I don’t think little money — I think big money.”

But, he says, that’s not the project’s motivation.

“The big thing is, you’re going to be taking care of the most vulnerable people in the community. That’s a lofty goal (and) I think that’s a commendable goal for a city, a community, to be involved in,” Knecht said.

Saskatoon’s numbers are about the same. It costs $100,000 for a chronically homeless here as well. It’s way cheaper to find housing.

Friday

Jan 26th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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My intention was to get into work early on Friday and so I could get out in lots of time to go to the gym. I also wanted to get into my office before the plumbers came in (no heat at all in my office this week) and get some work done in some peace and quiet. The good news is that the plumbers are gone and I have a brand new cutting edge radiator. The bad news is that I still have no heat. If there is some good news is that Chris’s office has heat (according to some) but it was still colder than mine which has no heat. Then again I think we call that a lose, lose situation.

We did rearrange our office. Both Jeff and I have our office set up so we are less approachable and harder to talk to according to experts. That didn’t work out so well as we still had a plethora of staff coming in to chat. We may need to install a moat. One idea we did have was to install a Les Nessman type wall in our office. The only staff that got the WKRP reference put on up and now we have a green tape line going down the middle of my office. The bad news is that my fridge is on Jeff’s part of the office now.

As I was about to leave our two complex needs support staff wandered in as they host a coffee house on Friday nights for our clients. Since they don’t actually report to me, the conversation is always pretty stress free. Our conversation moved over the other side of the building where I decided to stay for coffee house. After we were done serving I took an hour to sit down and talk with some residents who were all loitering around. I had helped all of them over the last couple of weeks and all had made some really significant process towards housing (they all had found jobs and were working). Over the next hour we just talked about hunting, cars, guns, rural life, how to cook wild game (I am told that you cook it in bacon), and life at The Lighthouse. I was also criticized for not liking the coffee at The Lighthouse. I criticized them back for liking the coffee at The Lighthouse.

I forget sometimes how much I enjoy this part of the job. There is paperwork, reports, and plans to make but they don’t really give anything back to you. Sitting down and chilling out with some residents and listening to them is what gives back. It’s not always like this, many times there are crisis’ and problems but on a night where I just sat back and listened to some people working hard and making progress, it reminds me that we are making a difference.