HOMELESS NEED MORE THAN SHELTER

Treatment Centres Backed With Stable Funding Will Provide The Help That Is
Required

The prospect of a new $10-million centre on Pandora Avenue for the city's
homeless is good news -- probably no civic issue troubles, and sometimes
angers, Victorians more than the large numbers of people living and
panhandling on our streets.

The new centre will unite Rev. Al Tysick's Open Door and David Stewart's
Upper Room shelters, and provide transitional housing for 45 men, with
three meals a day, laundry service, and 24-hour staffing. The building
should be ready in two years.

The province (which, in an election year, has rediscovered the value of
funding social programs) and Ottawa are each kicking in $3.65 million in
startup costs. The city of Victoria is exempting the centre from $75,000 a
year in taxes, and providing $25,000 a year for an outreach worker, while
the Vancouver Island Health Authority is offering $350,000 a year for
operating costs.

That leaves about $2 million to be raised locally. Given the generosity of
Victorians, this shouldn't be a problem.

Are there other problems? Of course there are.

A warm place to sleep and hot meals are only part of the solution. A truly
effective facility has to get people back on their own two feet if possible
(recognizing that issues such as mental illness, physical illness and
addiction may make independence impossible). To this end, the new centre
will provide computer rooms and space for classrooms and training programs.

Many of those who use the new centre will have drug and alcohol addiction
problems: will they find adequate supports in the community to battle these
issues? So far, the answer is no, there are not enough treatment
facilities, so more government funding is required in these areas as well
if the centre is to get its clients permanently off the streets.

Stable government funding is another major problem. What if the province
suffers another economic downturn: will the provincial money to support the
centre still be there? Continuing funding for other worthwhile programs has
sometimes not been forthcoming.

For example, three years ago Victoria had an exemplary outreach program
called the Youth Employment Project. This program actually worked in
getting young people off the street by training them in janitorial work.
Yet, YEP died when it lost its main source of funding, from the federal
Human Resources Development Canada, because its eight-week training program
wasn't long enough.

YEP founder Richard LeBlanc is currently looking for more stable commercial
- -- not government -- sources of funding so he can restart the program.

And, as we noted in a March 27 editorial, some of the increase in
homelessness is due to provincial downsizing of mental-health facilities
such as Riverview, without providing adequate supports for ex-patients in
the community. The Pandora centre, then, is what should have been in place
when the mental-health cuts were made.

Better late than never, and the Pandora facility will be a welcome addition
to Victoria's social-support network. But more is needed, in the way of
addiction and mental health clinics and the like, if the centre isn't just
to be another -- albeit more comfortable -- Band-Aid solution for the homeless.