STATE OF MIND

Calgary's Homeless Problem Not Just About Housing

Eight days before I found myself in the underground parking garage of
the Drop-In Centre listening to a social worker practice his
bagpipes, I drove downtown with Gauntlet photographer Chris Pedersen,
an audio recorder and vague notions of the insidious link between
mental illness and homelessness. In mid-September, I had explored
homelessness for a piece focusing on the lack of affordable housing
in Calgary. While conducting research for that article I kept coming
across another pair of issues exacerbating the problem--mental
illness and substance abuse. The deeper I delved into this issue, the
more it became apparent that there is an entirely different world in
this city: a desolate world where people live on the street, where
drugs and alcohol are abused by many and where a significant number
suffer untreated mental illness. A world where a man playing bagpipes
in the basement of a homeless shelter no longer seems strange.

I have always taken an interest in society's treatment of its poorest
segments and the inconceivably bad conditions to which they seem
abandoned. As a white, middle-class male, raised in a highly-educated
family, there was no way I could come to understand or even really
appreciate the plight of these individuals. This was readily apparent
as I went downtown on the second Wednesday of October with Pedersen
to begin working on this article.

We lacked even a vague notion of what we were doing and my
carelessness was exposed when I realized that I had not bothered to
spend even a single minute thinking about what I would ask a homeless
person. This turned out not to matter as I was so nervous about
approaching anyone that I spent the first hour or so wandering
around, not even able to properly observe people, let alone actually
approach them. In the parking lot of the liquor store behind the DIC,
Pedersen and I had a bit of an encounter with a drug dealer and two
ladies who were not pleased with us taking photos (the photos were
not of anyone, but of a pile of bottles and other refuse). But not
even this was enough to force me into the reality of the situation.
That occurred some minutes later when I finally worked up the courage
to approach a man and ask him if he would talk with me.

We had walked back from 10th Ave., where my car was parked and where
we had just dropped off Chris's camera to avoid any further trouble,
to Seventh Ave., where we were certain we would find a host of
individuals to approach and ask questions near the C-Train. There was
a man pushing a shopping cart and picking bottles out of the trash,
who I deemed a good candidate for my inquiry. Still nervous, I
stalled for a few moments, walking past the man while madly
scrambling to come up with something to ask him, before finally
turning back and talking to him. He was at the corner of Seventh Ave.
and Second Street when I approached him.

"Hi," I said. "I'm a writer with the university newspaper and I'm
doing a story on homelessness in Calgary. I was wondering if you
would mind speaking with me for a few minutes."

I wish I had remained too nervous to approach him. He was somewhere
between 40-50 years old, had a beard that looked to have been trimmed
recently and was about my height. As I asked the question he looked
ahead and adjusted the latex surgical gloves that he wore while
pulling cans and bottles from the garbage can. I could see, as I
spoke, that my question was terribly affecting him. It was clear that
what I was asking was offensive in the highest order. After I
finished speaking, he continued looking away. The look of hurt that
came across his face was so profound, that for the next few days I
would frequently find myself lost to the world, ignoring anyone or
anything around me as I was haunted by how deeply I had offended him.
He seemed to be fighting back the urge to cry and trying to gain
control of his voice for a period of some ten or so seconds, which to
me stretched on for an eternity, before he finally responded.

"I'm kind of busy right now," he said.

"Okay," I said, feeling horrible and trying to leave the man alone as
fast as possible. "Thank you for your time."

Walking away from the man, I felt as if I had deeply violated him. I
was plagued by uncertainty that I would ever be able to deal with
this story. I wondered if my question had been malicious. Had I
awakened in him some misery about his station in life? A sense of
guilt about some past decision that had left him in that place? A
frustration at the abandonment he had received from society? I don't
know, but that incident served to jangle me enough that I finally
began to realize that there was real and intense human emotion
involved with this situation. It was not right to approach this
article without investing anything into it.

There is no way that I will be able to explain the depth of this
problem and the utterly horrifying realities that its victims, in the
strictest sense of the term, live through on a daily basis. Despite
this, I will attempt to examine, as best as I can, this abhorrent
situation and the reasons it claims the victims it does.

Mental Illness in the General Population

Mental illness is far more prevalent amongst Canadians than most
people realize. In the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs,
Science and Technology's Kirby report, it is noted that nearly 20 per
cent of Canadians experience some type of mental illness each year:
17 per cent mild, three per cent severe. That means that on an annual
basis, given the country's population of roughly 33 million,
approximately 5.6 million Canadians will face mild mental illness and
990,000 will suffer severe mental illness. There needs to be
infrastructure in place to help these individuals receive the
treatment they need to allow them to continue to function as
productive members of society. Unfortunately, in Calgary this
infrastructure severely lags behind need.

"It's overburdened," said Calgary Health Region coordinator of mental
health housing Bettie Yanota. "There's the beginning structure
there, but it needs to probably grow as the whole city has been
growing over time."

Calgary Health Region clinical operations manager of mental health
services and addictions Irene Myrah noted there are only three
hospitals in Calgary. Calgary is also the only major Canadian city
that lacks a psychiatric hospital.

Prevalence of mental illness amongst the homeless population

The homeless population experiences much higher rates of mental
illness than the general population. The percentage of homeless
individuals suffering mental illness hovers somewhere between 60-70
per cent. This number includes both severe and mild illness, as well
as addictions.

"I've seen different ranges of things," said Calgary Health Region
patient advocate David Chakravorty. "A common number is 60-70 per
cent [of homeless] have some form of mental illness. Someone with
schizophrenia is far worse than someone suffering depression due to
their situation. There are treatments for all forms of mental illness
and the treatment varies in terms of effectiveness."

Myrah and Yanota both stressed that the prevalence of mental illness
amongst the homeless population is on the rise. In addition, they
advocated that it is wrong to stigmatize and blame people
experiencing mental illness.

"Initially, [the] homeless were homeless, but now I think they're
saying about 60 per cent [are mentally ill]," said Myrah "In some
types of mental illness, your judgement gets a bit impaired. Your
brain does not function the same way. The stigma is there far more
than for any other illness. The biggest thing is to get over that you
didn't choose to have this. You didn't say 'my god, I'm going to be
mentally ill.' When your brain doesn't develop the way it should
because of what's happening with all the synapses and everything
else, that's not your fault."

Yanota pointed out that the prevalence of mental illness amongst the
homeless population means that there are about 2,000 mentally ill
people living on Calgary's streets.

Substance Abuse

The issues of substance abuse and homelessness cannot be separated.
Yanota noted that roughly 75 per cent of the homeless population are
addicted to drugs or alcohol. Of this group, two-thirds began using
after they hit the streets.

"If you've got a tendency to abuse drugs or alcohol, if you get a
hundred bucks in your pocket it'd be tempting to go and slug back a
few," said Yanota. "You can't blame [them] if they don't have
anything else in their life."

Discussing the issue of substance abuse and homelessness, Canadian
Mental Health Association Calgary Region program manager of street
outreach and stabilization Jennifer Finley, gave the most candid response.

"Some people drink when they're having a bad day," said Finley. "If
you're permanently having a bad day, what are you going to do? I
probably would be a hardcore user if I lived on the streets."

Concurrent Disorders

Concurrent disorders are the dual affliction of mental illness and
addictions. There is a great deal of ambiguity involved in these
disorders and mental health professionals are often unable to
determine which one developed first--the proverbial chicken and the
egg. This creates tremendous difficulties for individuals trying to
help the sick person as the two problems cannot really be separated,
one influencing, aggravating or perhaps causing the other. Despite
this, many programs attempt to treat mental illness and addictions separately.

"It makes it so difficult to treat," said Myrah. "If you're trying to
treat [someone] with medicine for example and [they've] got an
addictions problem, one interferes with the other. If your whole
issue that day is to get enough money to get a fix, it makes it very
difficult to treat your depression or your mental illnesses. The
homeless [issue] is more than just housing."

Though often people start using drugs after they hit the streets to
cope, some become mentally ill as a result of the drugs.

"Some people have drug-induced psychosis," said Yanota. "They will
go from doing quite well to using drugs and then having a psychotic
illness. Some people will develop a psychotic illness and then take
drugs in an attempt to self-medicate. People that have drug-induced
psychosis, we don't really know if they would have developed an
illness without the drugs."

Treatment, a lack of capacity and the wait list from hell

The homeless community, beset by a much larger prevalence of mental
illness and substance abuse than the general population, require a
great variety of services. The services specifically aimed at this
portion of the population while numerous, are drastically short of
resources. Treatment facilities, perhaps the most important component
in getting people off drugs, have stupefying waiting lists.

"[There are] very long waitlists," said Calgary Urban Project Society
director of operations Robert Perry. "[For] men's addiction
treatment centres, I think it's almost two months."

"For a city the size of Calgary, you have one detox centre," said
Myrah. "Detoxing is a medical condition. It's dangerous to detox
from some of these things. Bettie mentioned the [Assertive Community
Treatment] teams and it's a well known fact that we have one team in
a city of a million people. We should have probably 10."

Not all people who require help are willing to seek it. If they are,
their initial willingness to cooperate with treatment may taper off,
causing them to fall back into the same problems as before.

"I think many of them are getting treated to the level of their
required treatment," said Perry. "Then there are those who were
treated and then stop their treatment, get off their meds and they
have a little bit of a spiral down, [as well as] those who are just,
frankly, too paranoid to go get any help."

In 2006, the most recent homeless count was conducted, finding 3,346
persons living in shelters or on the streets on the night of May 10,
2006. The next homeless count will be conducted a few months from now
in the spring and is expected to find an increase in the homeless
population anywhere between 23-35 per cent. Calgary is a city
bursting with money and we have a growing number of people without a
house, the majority of whom are mentally ill.

The DIC

The Drop-In Centre is one of the only shelters in the city that will
take people in while under the influence. I went to tour it with
Chris Pedersen a week and a day after our initial excursion downtown.
The staff was kind enough to conduct a tour, but they were busy and
told us to come back in a half hour.

We set off towards the East Village while we waited, finding
ourselves at the St. Louis Hotel. It is suggested that this hotel, as
well as similar older buildings downtown, would be ideal to open up
as low-income housing. Apart from a few burnt out letters, the sign
remained lit, but the building was boarded up--a tragi-comedy in a
city crying for affordable housing.

Back at the DIC a staff member gave us a tour. The building is quite
large with six floors and an underground parking garage. It opened
Sep. 11, 2001, replacing the old DIC which sheltered Calgary's
homeless for many years. Along with Alpha House, the DIC is the only
shelter in the city that will accept someone who is using. While the
upper floors have areas set aside for those who are clean and trying
to get themselves into a better situation, the first floor has a
large room for those under the influence.

The sheer number of people there was surprising. Row upon row lay
sleeping in a massive room and more lay down on the floor near the
doorway. The shelter was so crowded on this evening in the third week
of October that there were people sleeping on the concrete floor of
the lobby. We were told that, as the weather gets colder, the shelter
fills up earlier and earlier. If this is the case in late October,
what will it be like when the snow hits the ground and the
temperature drops well below zero?

It is apparent that, though the DIC is doing an admirable job with
the resources they have, it is not enough to adequately serve the
homeless population of the city. Especially now as the harsh winter
sets in. I can only imagine how desperately insufficient the old
building was. I've heard that spending the night here is worse than jail.

In the underground parking garage of the DIC we saw a social worker
practicing his bagpipes. He began playing there a few years back,
after the police were called by an angry Brentwood community and
asked him to cease the racket. Interestingly, the homeless, eyesores
to much of Calgary's public, are sometimes treated in the same way.
On our first excursion downtown, Pedersen and I saw three police
officers approach an obviously homeless man drinking a cola in
McDonalds on Stephen Ave. to make sure that, once he was done, he
would leave. Like the sound of bagpipes, the homeless incur disdain.