Homeless

Victoria’s Homeless Report

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Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness T
The City of Victoria released its homelessness report on October 19. http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/tskfrc_brcycl.shtml

High Cost of Inaction
http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/tskfrc_brcycl_inactn.pdf
From the report. Reference citations are provided for these figures.

  • It costs taxpayers more than $50,000 per year to support each homeless resident in British Columbia.
  • With a homeless population growth factor estimated at 30 per cent, compounded for each year of inadequate housing stock and supports, Victoria’s homeless population could double by 2010.
  • The Victoria Police Department has identified a group of 324 homeless residents—many of whom are mentally ill and suffer from substance use problems or a dual diagnosis—who are responsible for 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at a cost of $9.2 million to the City of Victoria.
  • The City of Victoria has spent over $1.4 million already this year in expenditures associated with homelessness; including clean-up costs, needle pick-up, damages to sensitive ecosystems, security and responses to complaints.
  • Without proper access to health services, homeless residents rely on emergency and acute care health services—66 per cent of all homeless residents admitted to hospital by Vancouver Island Health Authority have a mental health or substance use related condition.
  • The Task Force found that there are over 200 organizations in the Greater Victoria area currently engaged in addressing the needs of homeless, addicted and/or mentally ill people in our community. Over 20 funding agencies already spend an estimated $76 million annually on housing, mental health and addiction services.
  • By not addressing the needs of the homeless population in Greater Victoria, we are spending at least $62 million in other services, such as policing, prisons, hospital services, emergency shelter, clean up, etc.
  • A study conducted by the province of B.C. in 2001 showed that the cost of service use under the status quo was 33 per cent higher than the cost of housing and supporting individuals.

Help for the homeless
$7.6 million pledged to help deal with homelessness, mental illness, addictions
Carolyn Heiman
Victoria Times Colonist
Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Vancouver Island Health Authority will supply $7.6 million for measures to ease Victoria’s homeless crisis, including new detox beds and specialized outreach teams.

The announcement was made yesterday, moments after the unveiling of the City of Victoria task-force report “Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness”, aimed at finding ways to reduce the number of people living on the street.

The largest chunk of cash is earmarked for 15 adult detox/residential treatment beds ($1.7 million) and creation of four community/treatment outreach teams, at a cost of $3.35 million. The teams, a cornerstone recommendation of the task force, will offer support and treatment for clients where they live, be that in parks, on the street, in shelters or in supportive housing.

A “housing-first” strategy, in which priority is given to finding homes for people on the street, regardless of their mental-health and substance-abuse issues, is the other cornerstone of the recommendations.

The outreach teams, to be established in the next year, are to include mental-health, substance-abuse and social-service specialists with shared caseloads and low staff-to-client ratios. They will be on call 24 hours a day. One team will focus on individuals with significant criminal records and a history of behavioural problems.

The expert panel on the task force said similar outreach teams were credited with reducing hospital admissions in Ontario by 62 per cent after one year, and 83 per cent after six years.

Victoria police found that 324 homeless residents — many with mental-illness or substance-abuse problems or both — were behind 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at an estimated cost to the city of $9.2 million.

Supporting the teams will be two new case managers assigned to help those leaving the hospital and correctional facilities, at a cost of $200,000.

Dr. Perry Kendall, provincial health officer and chairman of the expert panel, said the current system for delivering services is complex and difficult to negotiate, especially for people with mental illness and substance-abuse problems. Because they’re required to move from one service to another, they often fall through the cracks. He noted a study of injection-drug users showed that half had obtained treatment in the previous year, while 30 per cent tried unsuccessfully to obtain treatment.

The health authority also earmarked $1 million toward building the $4.6-million Downtown Health Access Centre, a Victoria Cool Aid Society project planned for its Johnson Street building. The centre will provide one-stop health services to homeless people. It replaces a program that Cool Aid board chairman Andrew Benson said is “bursting at the seams” at its Swift Street location.

Benson said he is pleased with the VIHA commitment but anxiously awaiting word on applications for another $1.5 million from the province and $500,00 to $700,000 from the Capital Regional District before construction can begin in March. The balance would be raised through donations.

A home and day detox program will receive $240,000, while a similar amount will go to train 10 homeless people who are ready to rejoin the workforce for jobs with the health authority.

The funding announcement also earmarked $600,000 to help the hard-to-house homeless, who will take up residence at a new 45-bed facility on Pandora Street. The facility, run by Our Place Society, is scheduled to open in November.

Kendall said the current system lacks co-ordination between mental-health and addiction services. Clients trying to obtain mental-health services are often rejected because they have addictions, while the same is true for those with mental-health problems trying to obtain addiction services.

VIHA yesterday earmarked $100,000 to train outreach workers to support clients with both mental-health and addiction problems.

cheiman@tc.canwest.com

Municipal

City Councilor questions median income ranking

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An Abbotsford city councilor emailed to ask about my source for the statement about Abbotsford having the highest median income. The table included with the email was for families which I questioned. The second table the councillor sent, while for individuals, was not the data I had used. Unfortunately having become homeless again means my computers and notes are stored and not accessible.

But the few data points and notes I have access to make clear that the numbers from the councilor’s chart are much lower than the numbers I had used/calculated. My first thought when I looked at the chart sent by the councilor was that the income levels seemed far to low and against logic. In fact the median individual income from the chart supplied is barely above the salary paid to a councilor for part time work and thousands of $$$ lower than council’s salary after the approved raise takes affect.

Fortunately being homeless does not deny you access to your brain, nor does it mean you suddenly lost ability to cerebrate. Which is very good news as being homeless the ability to use and exercise the mind with one’s power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, or arrive at a solution or judgments is a must if you have any hope of escaping the system and getting your life back.

My mind tends to chew over interesting facts or ideas as well as questions raised – would that our “leaders” minds worked that way. Apparently my subconscious has been chewing on this matter and when a quiet mental moment came tossed points up for consideration. I liked to review the “unsolvable” situation/problem then sleep with a pen and paper, beside the bed because my subconscious was so good at untangling complex puzzles and problems. I would wake up, write it down in detail and when I got up in the I had my solution.

Tonight as I was relaxing after my swim, with my mind quiet, up drifted the resolution. Leaving me shaking my head at how dense I had been. The table of individual income sent by the councilor had quantifiers applied to the table. I read the quantifiers and and simply failed to note what needed to be noted: “Government transfers represented the second largest source of income; All income data for individuals are … after the receipt of transfers”.

This is why there was such a difference between the councilor’s chart(s) and the data I had been using. Remember median is the middle, not the average. The more very low income individuals added to the bottom end of the “pile” the lower the median (middle point) moves on the pile.

The councilor’s chart included “… after the receipt of transfers”. Thus the councilor’s income pile includes individuals whose income is GST, OAS, CPP, welfare and any other government transfer which is classed as income and we have a situation where “Government transfers represented the second largest source of income”. This results in a very large number of very low incomes with the effect of pulling the median income to unexpected low levels.

The numbers I was working with were based on wages earned with the effect that the median income was several times higher since all the low “incomes” resulting from government transfers were eliminated moving the median (middle point) much higher on the incomes pile.

I think that it is reasonable to argue that individual median incomes based on wages is a more realistic chart to use when speaking of donations, rather than a chart distorted severely downwards by the inclusion of people whose incomes are solely government transfers. This is not to imply the poor are of less generous spirit, but merely acknowledges the reality that with the lack of affordable housing in this city the poor simply have no money to donate and must instead give of their time.

One of the other points that bubbled up is that in fact this number says nothing about the generosity of a city. What do you need for a median donation of $620? The median or middle income needs to be $620 so you could have a median donation with donations of $1 + $620 + $621 = $1242. Compare that to a city with a median donation of $1 made up of 50,000 $0.99 + $1.00 + 50,000 $1.01 = $100,001. Which city is “more generous”, the median of $620 and a total of $1242 or median of $1 and a total of $100,001? A median donation of $620 tells us nothing about the total the city gave or anything about the generosity of the city.

To me the concept of median donation has no real meaning or value outside of bragging rights. When it comes to bragging I was always told: “actions speak louder than words”. The proof of a city’s generosity or lack of generosity lies on the city’s streets among its homeless, among families, children and seniors who struggle to find food, clothing, shelter and other necessities and in the hunger of women, children and seniors. Do not be fooled by this meaningless number, median donation. Look around the city, see the need that grows daily in our city and then consider just how generous Abbotsford really is?

Consider

Which wolf do you choose to feed …

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A friend sent me this and somehow it just seemed so appropriate after I had just read that a new national study, titled HungerCount 2007, says 720,231 people, a number just shy of the population of New Brunswick, were forced to turn to one of the country’s 673 food banks in March to feed themselves or their families.

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, ‘Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.’

The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.

In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished.

They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, ‘You have seen Hell.’

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The holy man said, ‘I don’t understand.’ It is simple,’ said the Lord. ‘It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.’

We live in one of the richest countries of the world. On Canada’s table is a large pot of wealth and food. There is no material reason that so many are famished and thin, or living homeless and sick.

Another word for pot is crucible, but crucible also means: a severe test, as of patience or belief; a trial. Canada is the crucible; the hungry, the homeless and other neighbours in need our severe test, our trial. Is you soul well nurished and plump from having learned to feed others or is it thin and sickly because you think only of yourself?