Fixing Housing First

Housing First is not working in Calgary. And by all rights it should, after all it's the simplest concept in the world: Put homeless people in homes. Yet, since 2009 Calgary has housed over 6,000 persons from the shelter system, with the number of homeless individuals only going down 2,000 in that same time, (based on the last homeless count in Calgary).

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.

Read more ...

Something's Wrong in the National Election

I've been very vocal on Twitter about my intent to decline my ballot this year. A declination of ballots is a legal right that I (and every voting eligible citizen) holds. It is not staying at home on election day. Rather, it is taking the time to go to the polling station and tell them that absolutely none of the parties have adequately addressed the issues that are important to me this election.

You see, all three parties are talking about the middle class, and what they would do for the middle class. And I think supporting the middle class is great, if the middle class were still around. This isn't the 1950's when the middle class made up the large bulk of the population. This is 2015. The middle class has been ever shrinking and getting smaller. Even the landscape of the top earners has changed dramatically.

In 2013, if you made $190,000 dollars, then you were among Canada's top 1% earners. Adjusted for inflation, in the 50's and 60's that would have made you middle class. And even with the adjustments in value, that still would have let you be a lot more affluent back then than it does now. It's one of the reasons why I distanced myself from the Occupy movement - the bottom tier of the top 1% is not as affluent as we often imagine.

To help the middle class is great, but it only helps the middle class when people are in the middle class. And so for it to be worthwhile to pitch all those efforts, you need to move people into that class. And that means the middle class is going to have to grow on both sides - some of the affluent but not elite will have to move into the middle class. But more importantly to me - we need to move people from the lower class into the middle.

This is where there has been a clear lack of talk among all the major parties. There has been almost no discussion among the leaders about poverty and homelessness. The criminalization of poverty has gotten steadily worse in most of Canada - despite being unconstitutional - and 40% of adults living in poverty are employed full time. Programs to protect those in poverty or at risk are becoming significantly harder to get, and health benefits in most provinces are being scaled back at astronomical rates. Most poverty reduction efforts are handled and funded at the local level - which has the advantage of the locality more likely to know what's needed in it's area, but suffers from only local funding.

We need more than jobs. We need to ensure workers are actually earning enough to sustain their families. A simple increase in wages will not work, as an increased demand for goods combined with higher bottom lines from higher wages will drastically inflate prices and put us back in the same spot.

Tax credits are great, and I appreciate the fact that many people in poverty are not required to pay taxes when their earnings fall below a certain amount. But a lot of programs that could benefit people in poverty are rather distributed to the middle class - which again, is shrinking - because they are only provided through tax credits. A tax credit for purchasing public transportation monthly passes is great, but not to someone who earns less that $13,000 a year and still has to rely heavily on transit to get around. Many cities have affordable transportation for low income earners, but many do not, and this is a federal election.

What is needed is a comprehensive, poverty reduction strategy. And a guarantee that programs introduced in this strategy will be accessible by people living in poverty. And that's the problem, isn't it? I want to believe a Universal Childcare Program would help, but if Quebec is any indication, most of the childcare spots are still taken by the more affluent individuals while children from poorer households are stuck on waiting lists. We need more than token programs and charismatic talk. We need ideas that work for the poor.

Now for homelessness. A leader who will not fight for the homeless will never have my vote. We need less program housing and more affordable housing. We need less housing that punishes us for being in poverty or for being poor by telling us how we need to be to maintain our housing, and more housing that is affordable for those living in poverty where the only things that determine if you can sign a new lease is if an individual can pay the rent, not damage the place, and not use the place to commit crimes. We need less talk of building more housing, and more shovels in the ground actually building the housing.

We need removals of barriers to vote - we need more acceptable ID's and to make it easier to vouch for people who want to vote. We need an easier way for the most vulnerable people in society to challenge the criminalization of homelessness and poverty. It violates the charter to discriminate based on class or social standing, but a charter based challenge that may go to federal courts is extremely costly, thus ensuring that the criminalization of the poor and especially the homeless forever goes left unchallenged.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of issues that are important to me as an individual. And these are all things that are being left out of the public discourse during election time. If a party wants to earn my vote, start talking about these things. I think we're already clear by now about your stances on the middle class on the economy. Let's talk about something new: the vulnerable.

Read more ...