Ending homelessness. If this can happen, what else is possible?

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Louise Gallagher

Next Tuesday, June 9th, from 3 – 7pm, the Calgary Homeless Foundation will be inviting the public to join in the kick-off of construction of two new housing projects , Aurora on the Park and Providence House. These 24 and 25 unit apartment buildings will become home for formerly homeless Calgarians. Part of the RESOLVE Campaign, they mark another step, many steps, forward in our collective vision of ending homelessness in Calgary.

There is a lot of hope around these two buildings. A lot of belief in the future, the possibility of lives changing, homelessness ending.

For the kick-off event, we have contracted This is My City Art Society to yarnbomb the entire house. For two weeks, artists and volunteers wrapped afghan blankets and skeins of wool around the building and its fixtures creating an art piece that not only draws attention from every passerby, and is also encouraging people to come from other parts of the city to take a look at, it also signifies what can happen when a hope becomes a dream, becomes a possibility, becomes reality.

The finished art piece is incredible. The house is all wrapped up in beauty, whimsy and a sense of warmth and hominess, ‘just like grandma’s’, as one reporter said in his TV piece on the house.

More than grandma’s, this house, and the building that will eventually be home to 24 people who will live there and be supported through each step away from homelessness, represents hope. Hope for a better quality of life. Hope for a better future. Hope for change that makes a real difference.

This project is all about hope.

Ask someone with longterm lived experience of homelessness what kept them mired in that place of no fixed address and they will often reply, “I had no hope anything could be different.”

It is a common refrain.

“I gave up on hope while I was homeless.”

Homelessness, by its very nature, is filled with loss. Your belongings. Home. Family connections. Friends. Job. Life as you knew it is lost.

And then there’s the other losses which are harder to measure, more difficult to see, even though they are felt deeply by those experiencing them.

The loss of hope. The loss of believing you can create different in your life. The loss of knowing where you belong. The loss of feeling accepted, worthy, part of the greater world out there just for who you are. In homelessness, you lose your ‘things’. You also lose your sense of self.

While at the house on its final day of yarnbombing, I was speaking with one of the artists with lived experience of homelessness. He told me about finally getting a place of his own, a year ago this week. “I hadn’t realized until I sat back in my own living room and started counting the time I was homeless how long it had been,” he said. “Seven years.”

What kept you there (at a shelter) so long? I asked.

“I lost all hope,” he replied.

Each day became like the last. Every day predictable, even in all its uncertainty. If it was Sunday, the dinner was this because volunteer group A came in on Sundays and prepared the meal. Monday, it was group B. He could go to work at some temp job, get paid a fee and know, hoping for anything different was futile. He had no hope. How could things be different?

There was no sense to hope for anything different, he told me. It was always the same old, same old.

And that included the feelings of losing your sense of self, of your own worth, competency, ability to create change. Like hope, it evaporated with every passing day until without even counting down the days, the light was gone and all hope of ever finding your way out of the darkness vanished.

How did you eventually get out? I asked.

It was through art. Through connecting with This is My City Art Society and getting involved in their initiatives, he began to see another path, another way.

With every streak of paint from a paint brush, with every bit of creation and connection made with the world beyond the shelter, hope came alive.

On Tuesday, June 9th, we will kick-off the construction of 49 units of housing for formerly homeless Calgarians. There are two buildings in different communities, both of which have embraced the idea that ending homelessness begins in their backyards.

In 2008 when Calgary’s Plan to End Homelessness was launched, there was only a hope that this could happen.

Today, it’s a reality.

We cannot give up on hope.

If this can happen, what else is possible?

This is still part of my Ultimate Un-guide series. Ending homelessness is all about holding onto the hope that it is possible, and then, taking action to create the possibility.

Homelessness is the trap. Housing is the door out.

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Louise Gallagher

I knew Jack* when I worked at the homeless shelter. In his 50’s, clean-cut, polite, he easily met the criteria of sobriety necessary to move out of ’emergency’ shelter into short term supportive housing on another floor of the 50,000 sq. ft. building.

That was 4 years ago.

The short term has turned to long. His emergency has become his way of life.

He feels stuck. Trapped. Hopeless.

“The longer I stay, the harder it is to get out,” he said as we stood on the C-train platform where we’d run into each other. He’d remembered my name. I had to ask him for his. He paused and looked at me with his clear blue eyes, shaking his head from side to side. “I wonder now if I ever will.”

He’s working three to four days a week and wants to move out, he told me, if he could just get a place he can afford.

The cost of housing in this city, the unpredictability of his temp work and his fear of falling back should he move out have trapped him. “I don’t want to move out only to move back,” he said. “Done that too many times. It only makes it worse.”

Last October, when Calgary performed a Point in Time Count of homelessness, of the 3,555 individuals counted as homeless on the night of October 16th, 1,292 or 36.3% were living in short term supportive housing. Middle aged men, 45 – 64, comprised 39% of the total homeless population. (source)

Baby-boomers are aging out in homelessness and many of them, like Jack, are stuck in the despair that comes with living on the edges too long.

I didn’t have an answer for Jack. He wanted to know if the Foundation I worked for could help him. “You have housing don’t you?” he asked.

We do, I replied, but our focus is on the long term, high-acuity, chronically homeless.

“Aren’t I chronic?” he said. “I’ve been stuck in it for way too many years.”

And he has, but his acuity doesn’t score high enough on the measurement tool used to determine acuity. “Our resources are limited,” I told him. “To end homelessness on the larger scale we must first house those whose mental and physical health issues put huge demands on public service systems.”

In the context of the Plan to End Homelessness, that means the 16% of the homeless population who account for 40% of shelter spaces and put a strain on public service systems through their high use of emergency services, police interactions and judicial costs.

“You mean I’m not broken enough?”

It was not an easy conversation.

I stood and looked at him and saw a man, broken and dispirited. He isn’t a trouble-maker. He doesn’t break the law. Why wouldn’t we want to help him instead of the guys who are drunk all the time and keep breaking the law, he asked. Why do they deserve so much help?

In Calgary, 86% of those who enter an emergency shelter move on within 3 weeks without any intervention. Men like Jack, once trapped in the system, keep fighting to get out but for whatever reason can’t find their footing beyond the shelter doors. For some, gambling is the culprit. Unseen, it erodes their well-being leaving them continually cycling through a disease others can’t see and they cannot cure.

For others, the cycle of emotional abuse that long term homelessness represents traps them in its maws, forcing their will and their spirit deeply underground. In its wake, it leaves them continually despairing of ever finding solid ground. They work and spend their money, week after week. Some will spend years staying at the shelter, working enough from Monday to Friday to be able to afford a motel room on weekends, only to return on Monday night to the shelter, spent and despairing of ever finding a way out.

For all of them, housing is the way out.

And that’s what Calgary lacks. At least the kind of housing they can afford. Nothing grand. Nothing over-the-top. Just not too expensive. A room of their own. A small fridge. Hot plate. A place to call their own where spirits mend and they can put their feet up and breathe deeply into the knowing, this is their own place to call home.

“I’d love to have a girlfriend,” Jack said. “But how do I introduce her to my 140 roommates?

And like with so many of his questions, I didn’t have an answer.

*not his real name

Death is not the only route off the street; Home is.

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Louise Gallagher

He wheels his wheelchair up to where we stand on the platform waiting for a train back downtown. A co-worker and I have just come from a memorial service for people who have died on the street in the past few months. The man in the wheelchair was also there and as he straightens out his position, I greet him and we begin to chat.

I haven’t seen him a long while. Years ago, when I worked at a homeless shelter, he was walking. Barely. Mostly, he was living tough. Cantankerous. Often under the influence, he was angry, belligerent and difficult to work with. Few believed he could ever be housed. He was one of the marginalized who could never get away from the edges of living on the street.

He’s been housed for four years now. Has a small apartment of his own through an agency working towards ending homelessness.

He’s proud of it. Proud of where he’s at. How far he’s come.

And it struck me as we said good-bye, without the plan to end homelessness, he could have been one of the one’s we were bidding farewell today.

Just like the two other people who stopped to say hello as we walked towards the memorial service.

*Ellen called to me as we walked past. “Louise! Aren’t you going to say hello?”

I stopped and turned towards her voice, saw her and walked back. We hugged and chatted and she shared stories of her life in the past year.

“I’m completely sober now,” she told me. “Had to drop out of school but I want to go back. I want to do some upgrading and then go on to college.”

She’s in her 50s. A First Nation’s woman. A talented artist. Drugs and alcohol played havoc with her life for years. In and out of rehab. Jail. Emergency shelter. Her drug use spiralled whenever the pain inside threatened to consume her.

She’s in housing now. Has a support system. People who care about and for her.

And it struck me as we said good-bye, without the plan to end homelessness, she could have been one of the one’s we were were bidding farewell today.

As *Jake walked towards us on the street, I thought I knew him but wasn’t sure. He looked so calm, so together.

He smiled as we drew near, said hello and we hugged and I told him how good he’s looking and he laughed.

“Clean and sober for 4 months,” he said proudly. “I’m sleeping now.”

Jake’s been housed for 2 years. He’s always told me he wanted to get sober. Need to, he’d say. But was too afraid to try.

After many steps towards rehab, he finally made it.

And it struck me as we said good-bye, without the plan to end homelessness, he could have been one of the one’s we were bidding farewell today.

I thought of these individuals and the thousands of others who have been housed since Calgary implemented its plan to end homelessness. Without housing and support, the trajectory of their journey too often leads to death on the streets. Death inexplicably cruel and senseless.

As I watched the family who had come to the service, I felt the weight of their pain and sadness. “Death comes for all of us,” said Lloyd, the elder who lead the ceremony.

But when death comes to someone living on the streets, it tears away all hope of their ever finding their way back home to where they belong.

There were 11 people’s lives celebrated at the ceremony. 11 people whom death found far from home.

But it didn’t find those I chatted with yesterday. And it didn’t find the thousands of others for whom homelessness has ended because they have found their way back home to where they belong.

I am grateful. For Calgary’s plan to end homelessness. For those who had the compassion and wisdom to know we needed a plan to shift our focus towards ending homelessness right from street level and continue to support the work we do to keep the plan alive and moving forward. And I’m grateful for the countless people in all the agencies who work so hard and passionately to ensure that death is not the only route off the street; Home is.

Namaste.

*Not their real name.

I changed my glasses. I can see clearly now it was me, standing in the darkness

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Louise Gallagher

I changed my glasses last night. I hadn’t realized they were foggy until Mary Davis, the facilitator from Choices Seminars, mentioned in an email, “all these things you have on your plate are really lovely items.”

I had written to apologize for having to back out of my commitment to coach at Choices next week. I hadn’t wanted to, back out. I absolutely love coaching at Choices and am privileged to be able to do it as often as I do. I won’t be there in April because of the wedding, and was telling myself I would be letting the whole team down if I didn’t turn up as I’d committed to this time.

I kept telling myself, “I can do this. All of it.”

And then, lying awake in the dark, trying to rosy up my glasses so I could peer into the darkness of my thinking that I was sinking beneath the juggling of all the things I had to do, I realized, it’s not true.

I don’t have to do it all. Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes, I have to trust it will be okay.

So I wrote and let Mary know I couldn’t be there.

And still, I worried. What would she think of me? Maybe her disappointment in me would lead her to reject me. Maybe everyone would be mad at me and never want to work with me again.

Ahhh, that critter is such a sneaky fellow. He knows I have trust issues, heck he feeds them all the time! So imagine his glee when he realized I was tripping over myself, lost in a sea of angst? HA! Gotcha! he shouted as he catapulted into a new assault of my senseless worrying about what other people think of me. True to form, when faced with even a glint of what he perceives to be my failure to heed his advice, he morphs into a new and slimy perspective designed to keep me playing small in the eye of his hurricane-force howling telling me I am a failure. I don’t belong.

Gosh, I sure can get caught up in my own darkness, and drama, when I take my sights off the truth. I’m okay. In fact, I’m wonderfully, lovingly humanly okay.

I really did think it was my job to cram it all in, juggle it all and keep the world spinning.

Mary’s gentle and loving response to my email stopped my thinking in its tracks.

I was seeing the totality of all I had to do and losing sight of the loveliness of all I had to do.

I was trapped in the dark side of my thinking it was all up to me and not seeing the loveliness and joy of all I am excited about doing.

I have a lot of lovely things on my plate. Some of them include organizing a media training day for executives in the homeless serving sector in March and working with an amazing team on the launch of a Homeless Charter of Rights in April.

My beloved and I are also planning our wedding for April 25th and over the past few months, I have had an amazing time creating for it.

And, this project of launching Calgary’s Updated Plan to End Homelessness at the Summit on March 3rd. It is exciting, inspiring, uplifting. We are in the throes of paradigm shifts and igniting collective impact. It’s amazing!

And there I was bogged down in the minutia of the ‘I’ve got to do it all’ and losing sight of how I can trust others to be doing their best too to change the world.

My glasses were foggy. I changed them.

I can see clearly now.

It was me, myself and I getting in the way of my seeing the truth — Next week at Choices, there will be a whole team of loving, caring, committed individuals doing the wonderful work of Changing the world one heart at a time.

My difference will be felt here, at the nexus of working towards a goal I believe is important to the quality of life of every Calgarian — ending homelessness.

I am truly blessed to have so many lovely things on my plate. Things that excite me and charge me up, that remind me every day — I can be the change I want to see in the world.

We all can.