‘Homelessness can happen to anyone’
Calgary’s at-risk population more than just the ‘visible homeless,’ writes Ryan Rumbolt.
When you think of a homeless Calgarian, what images come to mind?
Do you see an unshaven man picking bottles along 17th Avenue S.W.? Maybe it’s someone holding a sign on 14th Street, asking for whatever change you can spare.
These people are the “visible homeless,” but they make up only part of the city ’s at-risk population, says Cheryl Hamelin, executive director of the Resolve Campaign.
Many Calgarians don’t fit the stereotype of the visible homeless, but still need a helping hand, says Hamelin.
“The truth of it is there are many, many homeless families,” she says. “There are many people that are homeless, really through nothing that they have done.”
Hamelin notes women, the elderly, new Canadians and people with mental health or addiction issues can all end up needing help or housing. It’s not uncommon for those without a home to fall into more than one of these categories.
And according to one woman who knows what it’s like to need housing, all it takes are a few unlucky bounces to end up living on the street.
“Homelessness can happen to anyone,” says Barb, who is about to turn 60 and for the last four years has been a resident at the 1010 Centre in downtown Calgary.
A few years ago, Barb had her own car, a job and even her own home. In her words, she “had it all.”
But when her finances took a sudden hit, Barb says she was taking on debt quicker than she could pay it off. “I came within one day of either losing my house, going bankrupt, or selling it and paying off most of my debts, which I did,” says Barb.
Selling her home cut back on Barb’s debt, but left her with no place to go. She was couch surfing with friends for months at a time.
It wasn’t until she moved in with family that she learned about the 1010 Centre. It became a place to access mental health resources, participate in community programs and, most importantly, call her own home.
The 224-room affordable housing option for at-risk Calgarians is run by The Mustard Seed, just one of the partners in the Resolve Campaign. Resolve, which helps fight homelessness with a housingfirst strategy, was created six years ago, spurred by the 2008 10-year plan to end homelessness in Calgary. Since 2008, more than 8,000 people have been housed, with 90 per cent of tenants keeping their housing within the first year.
For Barb, the housing-first strategy has been life saving. She has schizoaffective disorder, which means she shows signs of schizophrenia while also struggling with depression and anxiety for years.
“It can affect all five of your sense and your thinking; it sometimes causes some pretty weird behaviour,” she says of her disorder. Sufferers can even experience hallucinations or believe they see non-existent people who may want to harm them.
In the past, Barb says her mental health made it difficult to function in society. She was afraid of leaving the house and even more fearful of the outside world. But after coming to the 1010 Centre, Barb says her condition has improved “100 per cent.”
“It turned out to be the best fit for me because I have mental health help here 24 hours a day,” she says. “There’s psychologists, there’s counsellors, there’s doctors, there’s nurses. The things that they provide here for the community are just absolutely amazing.”
Living at 1010 Centre has given Barb back her freedom, and it’s thanks to the staff and volunteers at the Mustard Seed, but also due to Calgarians donating funds to fight homelessness.
As of March 1, Resolve entered the last month of its campaign to raise tens of millions of dollars to battle homelessness in Calgary. The money raised helps the nine agencies partnered with Resolve — including the Mustard Seed and Alpha House — to create affordable and supported rental housing for Calgarians in need.
For those Calgarians, some are more at risk than others and many have more than more one risk factor at play, notes Kathy Christiansen, executive director of Calgary Alpha House Society.
She says there is a significant number of women facing homelessness and being a female on the streets brings a unique set of challenges.
“I think one of the pieces is that women aren’t as visible as men, and so within the homelessserving sector, often their needs are overlooked,” she says, adding women are at a greater risk of violence or exploitation. “The women as well, when it comes to addiction, … experience the social and physical effects of addiction more rapidly than men and are at more risk of death at an earlier age.”
Robin Spooner saw some of those effects for decades, as her sister, Krista, dealt with a number of challenges.
Krista had a genius level IQ, her sister says, and was a natural at games like Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy!, adding she could never beat her older sister at either of the two. But Krista — who was a client of Alpha House before she died in October of 2015 — suffered a mental illness that sent her down a path leading to homelessness.
Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at an early age, Krista started to self-medicate with drugs, Robin recalls. There were years of uncertainty regarding her sister’s whereabouts and whether or not she was still alive; and, that took a mental and physical toll on the family.
“When you’ve got somebody who’s sick like Krista was, it’s all consuming,” Robin says. “When you know that she’s living on the streets, you constantly worry.”
In 2013, Krista ended up in hospital because of her addiction and that’s where she met someone from Alpha House who helped her find housing. She began to improve thanks to what Christiansen calls a “continuum of care.”
People struggling with addiction often have a mental illness, but atrisk Calgarians have a better chance of successfully dealing with these problems when they have “the stability and the dignity of having a home,” Christiansen says.
Robin agrees, saying the support from Alpha House and Resolve partners allowed her family to step back from trying to be her sister’s caseworker and allowed her to “just be Krista’s sister.”
“We could love and support her,” before the physical strains of drug use and suicide attempts eventually took their toll on Krista, Robin says. “And in the last couple years of her life, she was in a really good place with the help of these guys.”
When women — and men — age, the risk of homelessness can increase, notes Hamelin.
“We don’t think about little old ladies and little old men who are living on the street because they didn’t save enough,” she says. “They maybe never ever made enough money to get beyond (living ) paycheque to paycheque. You literally have our grandmothers living on the street.”
Some of these elderly people are in and out of hospital regularly, while others effectively live in area hospitals because there’s no where else for them to go.
Lawrence Braul, executive director of Resolve partner Trinity Place Foundation, notes it can cost up to $1,200 a day to keep a senior in hospital, with an average of 123.5 days spent in hospital for each elderly Calgarian without a home.
But when these seniors become part of a housing-first program, the average number of days they stay in hospital drops to seven in the first nine months of this change in living.
The benefits of appropriate housing for seniors can also be seen through the successful placement of people like Barry Johnson, who found housing thanks to Resolve partner Silvera for Seniors.
Originally from Maple Creek, Sask., Johnson spent most of his life working as a lawyer in Calgary. He made a comfortable living, earning enough to get married and raise a family.
As he aged, health challenges arose. The 82-year-old spent more than six months in hospital after a series of small strokes, which he calls “medical misadventures.”
His wife passed away; his son was living in the United States; and, his finances dwindled to “close to zero,” as his health began to fail.
“So, I’ve gone from living with a significant amount of money to about ... $1,800 a month,” he says. “And at the end of the month, I might have about 25 cents left.”
On his own and with his savings nearly gone, Johnson was told by doctors that assisted living would be a wise decision.
If he could have afforded it, he’d rather have gone back to his one-bedroom apartment off 17th Avenue, which cost him around $1,300 a month.
But since moving into a Silvera home, Johnson’s expenses have been cut down to about $500 per month and his health has improved. He’s also found company in the form of other Silvera residents and medical support should his “misadventures” return.
With his finances and medical needs under control, Johnson has more time to do what he loves. An accomplished artist who has held shows in Canada and Mexico, Johnson spends his days painting in the style of Vincent van Gogh — his favourite painter — and has even held a few painting classes for other Silvera clients.
This type of win — finding affordable housing for at-risk people — has contributed to the measurable gains seen since Resolve began its fight against homelessness.
Meanwhile, a study of Calgary’s chronically homeless found once these individuals were housed, their interactions with police were down by 72 per cent; EMS calls were down 67 per cent; and, emergency room visits were down by 62 per cent.
Data from Resolve also showed it costs approximately $55,000 annually in social programs and hospital visits to care for a homeless person without a supported home, while costs are closer to $21,000 if those individuals receive a supported housing unit.
Even with all these successes, around 3,400 people in Calgary are still in need of housing. Resolve is accepting pledges to donate until the end of March, but pledges can be paid out any time before March 2021.