One of the things I’m struck by every time I go out and talk to homeless people or those who have relationships with them is that, as much as affordable housing for that group is needed, sometimes it’s not the only route to solving a problem.
Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore told me, during a chat that was mostly about incinerators last week, about the homelessness numbers dropping dramatically in his community. He mentioned that a church program to do tax programs had helped bring the numbers down.
Based on that shred of information, I tracked down Joyce Lissimore, who’s featured in my Globe story here, a retired schoolteacher who started doing tax returns for low-income people and discovered that, for a select group, she was getting enough back to help them accumulate enough money for that tough first hurdle in renting an apartment: the first month’s rent plus security deposit.
It’s not the first time I hear about the good work of a small, unknown group of people helping getting housing for people. On a visit to the new Dunbar social housing project recently, I ran into a woman who has been helping run the shower program at Kits Community Centre for local homeless people for years
As I learned when I talked to her, and all the guys at the new project who were delighted to see Penny Rogers when she came to visit them, it’s because Penny and her colleagues spent the time helping the guys fill out forms and make it to interviews with BC Housing that they got rooms. Without the help of those volunteers, the guys sleeping behind shops on Broadway and Arbutus might never have known or bothered to go through the process.
There’s been a fair amount of (accurate) reporting lately on the Vancouver Foundation’s findings that the biggest problem many of us identify in the city is a sense of disconnect and loneliness.
But that seems to recede a little, for me, when I hear about folks like this.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Bill McCreery // Jan 9, 2012 at 10:10 am
A very interesting perspective Frances. Is there any work that has been done to identify these kinds of alternative solutions of the homeless?
Your article highlights a shortcoming in much of our public policymaking: we go for the obvious, simple, easily managed solution, rather than a trying at a variety of options. And I say “trying” intentionally. We need to be prepared to experiment more. Try something, and if it doesn’t work, shut it down.
2 Silly Season // Jan 9, 2012 at 5:55 pm
I think that the Feds are trying that right now, Bill. It sounds more focused, and there are regional differences to be taken into consideration in the way it is approached.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20111227/harper-bankrolls-homeless-housing-project-111227/
Will be interesting to see how far this goes. And if successful in the eyes of the feds, if they will keep funding.
Also heard about a womens program for drug addicted that offers housing and all treatment in a three month program.
No gaps, no breaks, no waiting for each phase, no going to a different agency for a particular part of the program, the thinking being that you need at least that long to help the addicted break their current cycle and get used to following a new regime. From what we know of treating addictions and its relationship to neural re-wiring, this makes sense.
Which is very different that what we have today, where someone can start a program but may be without that next phase for two, three or more weeks. Easy to be back to square one in no time.
From an admin standpoint, you can certainly track that patient more easily and efficiently—and it may well be more cost effective in the long run.
if successful, might this beome a model, and then we might see some of the treatment log jam in a place like the DTES, receed? Don’t know how this particular program funded. Will try to find out.
3 Bill McCreery // Jan 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
Good example SS. The results of the Howe Street and the other programmes will be very interesting.
A major concern, however, is that those with mental illness and addiction problems unfortunately are not on a best before date timetable. Dumping someone back to the street before they are ready could be catastrophic.
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