Sunday, November 11, 2007
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.
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
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
Friday, November 09, 2007
Economic boom not putting food banks on the shelf
Economic boom not putting food banks on the shelf
Norma Greenaway, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, November 08, 2007
OTTAWA - Canada is on a roll. The jobless rate is near record lows, oil prices are soaring, the loonie is flying high, and the federal government is awash in surplus cash. The good economic news has not, however, erased the country's hunger problem.
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.
The tally was down slightly from last year. But it was up almost nine per cent from a decade ago, and no province or territory can boast that food banks have outlived their usefulness, says the Canadian Association of Food Banks, which has conducted the annual survey since 1989. The survey, released_Thursday, covers only one month
Although there have been fluctuations from year to year, the number of users has remained "unacceptably high" at more than 700,000 for each of the past 11 years, the survey found. Moreover, people with jobs comprise the second-largest group of food bank users, after those on social assistance.
"This is a sad reality when we live in such a prosperous country," Katharine Schmidt, the association's executive director, told a news conference on Parliament Hill.
Schmidt said the $60 billion in tax cuts announced last week by the federal government, including a one-point cut in the GST and a dip in the tax rate on the lowest-income earners, must be followed up with, among other things, more generous federal tax benefits for working people and parents, and an expansion of the Employment Insurance program to cover more people and to give them better benefits.
Even in booming Alberta, food banks reported a steady stream of clients again this year, many of whom reported having jobs. Camrose and District Food Bank reported, for example, that 90 per cent of its clients received most of their income from employment.
Food banks helped 38,837 Albertans in March, or 1.1 per cent of the provincial population, the report said. Of the clientele, 43 per cent were children, 27 per cent reported earning wages and 35 per cent said they were on social assistance.
In the nation's capital, the Ottawa food bank said the number of schools seeking meals for hungry children has grown dramatically to 17. The food bank has also started providing 12,000 meals to children during the summer months.
Nationally, the survey said children accounted for almost four of 10 people using food banks. Single-parent families account for 28 per cent of the clientele, two-parent families 22 per cent, single people 37 per cent, and couples without children 12 per cent.
People on social assistance were the primary users of food banks at 51 per cent. Employed people accounted for 13.5 per cent, people on disability supports accounted for 12.5 per cent, pensioners accounted for six per cent, and people on Employment Insurance benefits accounted for five per cent.
For the first time, the association surveyed the housing situations of people using food banks and found that 86 per cent were renters and eight per cent were homeowners.
Peter Tilley, executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank, said the annual studies illustrate a sad reality that food banks, once thought of as emergency assistance for people needing some short-term help, have become a crucial part of the country's social safety net for hundreds of thousands of people.
"It's a shame we made a business out of poverty," he said with a grim smile, referring to the network of food banks across the country, most of which, he stressed, rely almost exclusively on volunteer labour.
Norma Greenaway, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, November 08, 2007
OTTAWA - Canada is on a roll. The jobless rate is near record lows, oil prices are soaring, the loonie is flying high, and the federal government is awash in surplus cash. The good economic news has not, however, erased the country's hunger problem.
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.
The tally was down slightly from last year. But it was up almost nine per cent from a decade ago, and no province or territory can boast that food banks have outlived their usefulness, says the Canadian Association of Food Banks, which has conducted the annual survey since 1989. The survey, released_Thursday, covers only one month
Although there have been fluctuations from year to year, the number of users has remained "unacceptably high" at more than 700,000 for each of the past 11 years, the survey found. Moreover, people with jobs comprise the second-largest group of food bank users, after those on social assistance.
"This is a sad reality when we live in such a prosperous country," Katharine Schmidt, the association's executive director, told a news conference on Parliament Hill.
Schmidt said the $60 billion in tax cuts announced last week by the federal government, including a one-point cut in the GST and a dip in the tax rate on the lowest-income earners, must be followed up with, among other things, more generous federal tax benefits for working people and parents, and an expansion of the Employment Insurance program to cover more people and to give them better benefits.
Even in booming Alberta, food banks reported a steady stream of clients again this year, many of whom reported having jobs. Camrose and District Food Bank reported, for example, that 90 per cent of its clients received most of their income from employment.
Food banks helped 38,837 Albertans in March, or 1.1 per cent of the provincial population, the report said. Of the clientele, 43 per cent were children, 27 per cent reported earning wages and 35 per cent said they were on social assistance.
In the nation's capital, the Ottawa food bank said the number of schools seeking meals for hungry children has grown dramatically to 17. The food bank has also started providing 12,000 meals to children during the summer months.
Nationally, the survey said children accounted for almost four of 10 people using food banks. Single-parent families account for 28 per cent of the clientele, two-parent families 22 per cent, single people 37 per cent, and couples without children 12 per cent.
People on social assistance were the primary users of food banks at 51 per cent. Employed people accounted for 13.5 per cent, people on disability supports accounted for 12.5 per cent, pensioners accounted for six per cent, and people on Employment Insurance benefits accounted for five per cent.
For the first time, the association surveyed the housing situations of people using food banks and found that 86 per cent were renters and eight per cent were homeowners.
Peter Tilley, executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank, said the annual studies illustrate a sad reality that food banks, once thought of as emergency assistance for people needing some short-term help, have become a crucial part of the country's social safety net for hundreds of thousands of people.
"It's a shame we made a business out of poverty," he said with a grim smile, referring to the network of food banks across the country, most of which, he stressed, rely almost exclusively on volunteer labour.
