[homeles_ot-l] Good news from Toronto FW: FW: Pivot Legal Society Demands...

Wed May 28 12:17:25 EDT 2008

FYI - good news from Toronto - $ social housing instead of ticketing people.

Social housing gets financial boost 

Streets to Homes program set to receive another $5 million from city council
today 

May 26, 2008 Daniel Girard
Urban Affairs Reporter 
TheStar.com - GTA

Housing first. 
It's an approach to homelessness that says the best way to help people
overcome addictions, mental illness and other issues that led them to life
on the streets is to begin by putting a roof over their head.

A concept long favoured in some American cities, it moved to Toronto three
years ago. Today, it's set to get a huge funding boost from city council,
which is poised to approve spending nearly $5 million a year more to expand
its $8.7 million Streets to Homes program (S2H).

The additional cash, approved by council's executive committee earlier this
month, will permit hiring more social workers and beefing up support
services to help people find homes and jobs, in an effort to curb
panhandling.

The compassionate strategy, a reversal from the get-tough approach of
issuing $100 tickets in an effort to scare panhandlers off the streets, has
been endorsed by Toronto business and tourism officials and is being hailed
by social housing advocates here and across Canada.

"It's wonderful to get that kind of leadership from the largest city in the
country," said Mary-Martha Hale, executive director of the Anglican Diocese
Centre 454 drop-in centre in Ottawa. "It provides support to all of us in
the trenches to say to our city council: `We need to do this, too.'"

Hale, past chair of Ottawa's Alliance to End Homelessness, said the
financial commitment from Toronto will be used to push provinces for more
support for social housing and poverty-reduction measures, and to pressure
the federal government for a long-awaited national housing strategy.

While some other Canadian cities have adopted their own versions of a
housing-first program, S2H is being widely applauded because of the city
funding commitment and the fact it's bringing together politicians, social
activists, businesses, the tourist industry and police to confront the
problem.

Earlier this month, S2H program manager Iain De Jong travelled to Alberta
and Saskatchewan to tell them about the Toronto initiative.

"The brilliance of the approach is its simplicity – put people into housing
first and then help them deal with their underlying issues," said Tim
Richter, president of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. A program to house
the chronically homeless began there last fall.

Since its launch in 2005, S2H has helped more than 1,750 people find homes,
and nearly 90 per cent of them are still housed. 

"What we have for the first time is a municipality explicitly saying, `We're
not going to criminalize homeless people,'" said housing advocate Michael
Shapcott of Toronto's Wellesley Institute. 

"No one is saying panhandling is a good thing or a preferred option, but
it's the best available one for people who don't have a lot of good
options."

While the funding increase for S2H is "exciting and very commendable,"
Shapcott said it's crucial that the political momentum be backed up with
money from all levels of government, for everything from more affordable
housing to better welfare rates, a higher minimum wage and beefed-up health
and social supports.

"If six months from now there's just as many people out there panhandling,
then people are going to say this didn't work and we should go back to
throwing them in jail," he said. 

"All eyes really are on Toronto, so it's vital this not be set up to fail
because it's starved of resources." 

Thanks,
Lynne
Lynne Browne 
Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness 
147 Besserer Street, Ottawa ON  K1N 6A7 
613-241-7913 x 205, lbrowne at ysb.on.ca 
www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca 

-----Original Message-----
From: homeles_ot-l-bounces at list.web.net
[mailto:homeles_ot-l-bounces at list.web.net] On Behalf Of Tim D. Aubry
Sent: May 22, 2008 10:49 PM
To: Homelessness Ottawa
Subject: [homeles_ot-l] FW: Pivot Legal Society Demands Action on
ShelterStats(Vancouver)

FYI.  

Tim Aubry, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Professeur / Professor
École de psychologie / School of Psychology 
Centre de recherche sur les services éducatifs et communautaires /
Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services /
34 Stewart
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa 
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5
Tél. / Tel: (613) 562-5800 X 4815
Télec. / Fax: 562-5188

-----Original Message-----
From: Evie Gogosis [mailto:gogosise at smh.toronto.on.ca] 
Sent: 22 mai 2008 20:27
To: Subject: Pivot Legal Society Demands Action on Shelter Stats(Vancouver)

Pivot demands action on shelter stats

Media Release - For Immediate Release May 22, 2008

Vancouver - Pivot Legal Society is demanding that the City of Vancouver
place a moratorium on tickets given to people sleeping outside in light of
newly released shelter statistics that say homeless individuals, on over
40,000 separate occasions, were refused access to shelters in Metro
Vancouver over a nine month period. Over 17,000 of these turn away incidents
involved women and families.

"These turnaway statistics are alarming," said lawyer David Eby of the Pivot
Legal Society. "We have bylaw officers, police officers and security guards
cracking down on people who sleep outside, but these statistics make it
clear that there is nowhere else to sleep."

The statistics cannot be extrapolated into numbers of homeless individuals,
because neither the participating shelters nor B.C. Housing can say whether
the same individuals are being turned away from multiple shelters on any
given night or whether individuals give up after visiting just one shelter.
The statistics on families and women may count families as one person, or
may count children as well as parents, making those numbers less certain as
well.

"We need a provincial investigation of the real number of people who can't
find shelter," said Eby. "We're calling for a moratorium on police and bylaw
officers ticketing people who sleep outside until we figure out whether our
shelter system has been overwhelmed by demand."

There are currently 1,028 known shelter beds in Metro Vancouver, according
to the document. The GVRD Homelessness Count indicated that there were 2,592
homeless people counted during its biennial 24 hour count in March of 2008.

Pivot Legal Society released two open letters, one to Sam Sullivan, Mayor of
the City of Vancouver and Chair of the Police Board, calling for a
moratorium on bylaw and Trespass Act tickets given to the homeless, and one
to Rich Coleman, B.C.'s Minister responsible for housing, calling for a
formal investigation into the capacity of Metro Vancouver's emergency
shelter system.

------------------------------------------

About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot's mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the
law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those
most on the margins. We believe that everyone, regardless of income,
benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such as
opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law. 

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