So what's not working?
First, the only argument used in ending homelessness is the economic argument: Putting people in homes reduces cost to taxpayers in the form of healthcare and maintaining shelter services, services which are subsidised heavily by the Provincial government.
But really, the only motivation that should suffice is "It's the right thing to do."
While working with the Calgary Homeless Foundation on their Charter of Rights for the Homeless, a constant source of frustration for me was that anything we came up with was unenforceable. Shelters of course posted the documents on their walls, but in no way were obligated to grant any of these rights or facilitate these rights for anyone. And the Calgary Homeless Foundation lacks the teeth to make shelters submit to the charter because they only control housing programs, so a client is not subject to these rights until in a CHF-funded program, and even then, the rights still only apply to that program, not to the shelters an individual may reside at while going through the process of applying for housing.
We cannot afford to keep shelters and housing programs separate. Most, if not all of Calgary's shelters that serve the homeless have some form of housing program, but keep the operations of the shelter divorced from the operations of housing. This leads to a variety of problems from the perspective of clients, notably:
- information regarding housing programs is miscommunicated by different front line workers as the workers themselves are not given accurate information because of the divide.
- clients are encouraged to use the shelter's affiliated housing program when better options may be available
- shelters continue to abuse clients or implement policies that set the clients up for failure rather than foster an environment in the shelter that allows room for dignity and personal growth because the shelter is not funded by any body that holds human rights for the homeless as a standard.
The best solution that I can think of is to end the divide between shelters and housing programs. Shelters must be considered part of the housing process. This encourages shelters to foster a safe and dignified environment with more of a case management focus rather than mass micromanagement.
In one particular shelter, some of the changes that have occurred include lockdowns upon arrival to segregate the homeless community from the rest of the community, removal of plugs from the walls so clients with cell phones and laptops cannot use them if they wish to, and instituting a policy where guests cannot leave the mat areas between certain times. Each time, there was a couple of complaints and then after a few days, we all went "Okay. This is my life now."
While there are reasons for these policies - some that are acceptable, some that are not - I'd be scared to have that kind of power over someone. To be able to control someone to the point where they just accept anything I do that impacts them negatively. That's how adapted we've become to being controlled. We don't know the same freedom experienced by the mainstream of society, so we don't know how to handle any freedom once we've moved out. And if we don't know that freedom, we'll just end up being back in the shelter again. If the shelters are not divorced from housing programs, shelters will be more likely to be dignity focused, and also accountable for ensuring a minimum standards of human rights at the shelter level.
Housing First should work. But dignity should never wait until someone owns a set of keys. You send someone who feels like a human being worthy of housing into a house, they'll make it a home. You send an empty shell of a man into house (or apartment), and the apartment will be an empty shell no more meaningful than the shelter itself is.
Fix housing first. Guarantee dignity and respect for persons experiencing homelessness.
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