(cont.)
A sheltering space
To understand the depth and breadth of change that can happen in one person’s life at a shelter such as the DI, it is important to first understand the levels of shelter provided.
The DI provides four distinct levels of housing for approximately 1250 women and men over the age of 16, every night, 365 days of the year. In 2008, the shelter provided over 1 million bed nights to over 12,500 distinct individuals. As homelessness can affect adults of all ages, there is no upward age limit on who can access DI services.
For those under the influence of drugs or alcohol, shelter is provided on the first and second floors. Sober, yet still reeling from the initial impact of finding themselves as a statistic of a social condition called “homelessness”, or perhaps simply looking for relief from a temporary housing crisis, Emergency Shelter is provided on the 3rd floor as well as at a satellite shelter within proximity to the downtown core. As an individual moves forward in their individual homeless condition, transitional housing is provided on the 4th and 5th floors. To obtain and subsequently maintain housing on 4 or 5, an individual must be willing to participate in active case management, and create a ‘life plan’ that discusses significant issues and barriers that need to be addressed to create a platform for successful re-housing. As long as they arrive to the floor sober, they have a guaranteed bed every night in a more private setting than the general sleeping areas on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd floors. It is the same bed they had the night before and the same bed they’ll have the next night and the next, for as long as they need it.
To assist in the successful transition from shelter stay to independence, the DI also provides affordable living in two separate apartment buildings near or within the downtown core. One apartment building is for seniors with a fixed source of income, and the other is for adult men and women with employment. Both buildings are mixed-rent environments – shelter clients and market renters. Through maintaining on-going contact relevant to the individual’s needs, a success plan is created that will sustain the individual in the larger community; a plan that is appropriate to the individual’s financial, mental, physical and emotional capabilities.
Ideally, an individual’s progress through the various levels of housing at the DI would be a constant flow upward as they move from shelter reliance to self-reliance and self-efficacy. In reality, individuals often progress forward, fall back and begin their ascent out of homelessness again and again.
While the number of people using the DI has increased over the past eight years since it opened in 2001, (12,837 in 2008 compared to 9,493 in 2002, the first full year of operation for the new facility), the percentage of those staying more than seven days has decreased. In 2002, 34.2% of the total population stayed seven or more nights compared to 11% in 2008. It should also be noted that in 2002 65.2% of clients reported having stayed at the DI in previous years. In 2008, that number had risen to 75%. This suggests that regardless of the structural factors that contribute to increasing homelessness in our society, such as lack of affordable housing and fiscal, social and policy decisions2, homelessness is a recurring, not necessarily constant theme in an individual’s life. It also suggests that more complex and personal issues contribute to a person’s inability to retain housing.3
In addition to food and shelter, the DI provides clothing, furniture, counseling, job placement, job skills training, work readiness programs, an art program and other services to assist individuals in their efforts to reclaim their non-homeless identity.
Always interesting to hear the different perspecitves of homelessness.
Thanks for giving me a well written description of how life is on the cold and wet streets of Calgary. It took me a long time to finally find an organisation who is doing exactly what our organisation is doing for the past 12 years
If you wish to compare organisations, please do not hesitate and check out the streetlife in the heart of Europe; namely Luxembourg.
I am a canadian who has resided in Luxembourg since 1980 and am an active volunteer in the redaction since the year 2000.
Keep up the good work you are doing in Calgary and try not to give another bald headed man a comb or a toothless man a nice juicy steak. You can help some people, some of the time, but you can’t help everybody, all of the time.
Heads up and I hope to hear from you in the near future.
Yours Truly,
George E. Nixon
Thank you George for your encouraging words! And thank you for what you do. I shall definitely check out the work in Luxembourg.
so true — you can help some of the people, some of the time, but you can’t help everybody, all of the time.
Cheers!
Louise