[homeles_ot-l] Ott. Citizen's Kelly Egan on the Mental Health Commission of Canada

[Lynne Browne]

FYI, Alliance to End Homelessness in Ottawa in the news -

 

What? Another study?; Study on homeless unlikely to tell us anything we
don't know

Ottawa Citizen 
Fri Mar 11 2011 
Page: C1 / Front 
Section: City 
Byline: Kelly Egan 
Column: Kelly Egan 



Do we study things to death in this country? 

Stupid question. Of course we study things to death in this country. 

At the moment, the Mental Health Commission of Canada is undertaking a
massive study of mental illness as it relates to homelessness. It
involves following 2,285 people who are both mentally ill and on the
street in five Canadian cities, excluding Ottawa. 

It is costing $110 million. 

Bear with us, please, but the following excerpt is the kind of thing
that puts the crazy in crazy-talk: 

"A total of 2,285 people who are homeless and living with a mental
illness will participate in the study. Of these, 1,325 participants in
the research project will be given a place to live and offered a range
of housing, health and social support services over the course of the
research initiative. These supports include help with maintaining a
home, undertaking routine tasks like shopping or getting to a doctor's
appointment or securing opportunities for education, volunteering and
employment. The rest of the participants will receive the services that
are traditionally available to them in their cities." 

Then comes the whammy: "The two research groups will be compared to see
which approach works best." 

OK. See if we get this straight. One group of homeless will be given
permanent homes, help with social and health problems, support with
daily living. The other group will not be given homes and will have to
navigate the patchwork of services available, which are obviously
inadequate or they wouldn't be sleeping in shelters or cardboard hotels.


For $110 million, we want to know "which approach works best." 

Well, call me Einstein, but I'm going with Door No. 1. 

We are being uncharitable, apparently. People who know about these
things assure us there is a lack of solid evidence in Canada about the
ways and means of delivering what is usually called "housing first" to
the homeless. 

(And such evidence would form the bedrock for future policy decisions.
So, one supposes, we need to get it right.) 

In a nutshell, the "housing first" approach basically means taking a
homeless person and giving them a room or apartment first -even if in
the throes of addiction -and working on their problems, be they health,
social, educational, financial, from there. 

The advantage is that a good deal of anxiety is removed when a
marginalized person knows that, whatever else happens in the jungle that
is street life, they have a warm, safe place to take refuge at night. 

Marion Wright is the chair of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Ottawa
and the chief executive officer of the local branch of the Canadian
Mental Health Association. 

She, too, says she was taken aback when she heard the commission was
taking four years and $110 million to study the benefits of a "housing
first" strategy, long practised in the U.S. and some pockets of Canada.
"We've used 'housing first' since the '80s," she said Thursday,
referring to a CMHA initiative to scatter the hard-to-house mentally ill
in regular market housing. "We know it works in some situations." 

But she has become a supporter of the study, which continues until 2013.


Not only is much of our data American, she said, but we need better
information on the types of "housing first" models that actually work. 

There seem to be two main streams of delivery: clump the homeless
together in one building, hotel-style, with individual rooms and
apartments, and add common spaces and 24-hour support, security and
daily supervision; or sprinkle them into the broader housing market
(with rent supplements), but provide regular social-work support to help
integrate them into their "well" surroundings. 

"We need to generate some evidence that's based on the Canadian
health-care system, looking at an extremely difficult-to-serve
population," Wright said. 

In particular, the study will look at the cost-effectiveness of a
national effort to house the mentally-ill homeless, not to mention the
savings to the police, courts, the prison system and emergency wards. 

Spokesmen for the commission defended their approach. 

They pointed out that 85 per cent of the funds, or $90 million, was to
support the homeless in the study group with housing supplements and
social work. 

In other words, it is not for pencil-pushing academics. 

"There are lots of unanswered questions this study will address," lead
researcher Paula Goering said. 

It also looks at different populations, she stressed, be it aboriginals
in Winnipeg, drug users in Vancouver or ethnic populations in Toronto. 

"It's not just a question of 'can people stabilize their housing
situation,' but can we help them actually have better lives," Goering
said. 

Giving the homeless options to different housing and treatment is key,
she added. 

So say the experts. Surely, there is such a thing as studying something
to death, and with the homeless we may well be at death's door. 

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896, or e-mail
kegan at ottawacitizen.com 

 

 

 

Lynne Browne

Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness 

lbrowne at ysb.on.ca <mailto:lbrowne at ysb.on.ca> 

Office: 613-241-1573, ext. 205 

(note this phone # is in use temporarily until Jan 2011 )

Mailing addr: 147 Besserer St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6A7

www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca <http://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca> 

NOW ATEH is on FACEBOOK HERE
<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Alliance-to-End-Homelessness-
Ottawa/136029386442398?v=wall&ref=ts>  &

on TWITTER HERE @endhomelessOTT <https://twitter.com/endhomelessOTT> 

 

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