IF WE START BY ACTUALLY PUTTING THE HOMELESS IN HOUSING, WILL THAT
HELP?

As lead investigator for the Vancouver site of a $110-million,
five-city national research project on housing interventions for the
mentally ill and homeless, Simon Fraser University professor Julian
Somers has lofty goals.

Somers, a drug addictions specialist and the son of a homeless man who
lived and died in the Downtown Eastside, said the study aims to find
solutions on how to better integrate this oft-ignored and vulnerable
population into mainstream society.

"The question is what kind of community-based support will allow them
to be successful members of communities and not just be segregated in
particular areas like the Downtown Eastside," said Somers.

Armed with a budget of $23.5-million, the Vancouver team will start
recruiting 500 mentally ill and currently homeless participants in
October for the four-year trial, which is based on the Housing First
approach pioneered in U.S. cities and already in use in Calgary and
Edmonton.

Out of the 500, 300 will be given a roof over their heads -- mostly in
privately owned units -- and provided support for at least 21/2 years,
while 200, serving as the control group, will receive conventional
care.

Out of the first group, 100 will receive "assertive community
treatment," an intensive therapy provided by a multi-disciplinary team
that's available around the clock; another 100 will be assigned
"intensive case management," which involves a case worker helping them
navigate the system; while the final third will live together in an
apartment-style setting with on-site support.

The project, funded by the Mental Health Commission of Canada and
Health Canada, also involves University of B.C. researchers, health
authorities, St. Paul's Hospital, and the non-profit MPA Society,
which will be responsible for the housing component.

The goal of the study -- to be replicated in Winnipeg, Toronto,
Montreal and Moncton -- is to find out which type of care works best
for this hard-to-treat, tough-to-house population, which has long
fallen through the cracks of the health-care system.

But that's only the beginning.

"The focus of the study is to find out what kind of response is
necessary in order to promote recovery," said Somers. "But at the same
time, it's also asking what we as a society can be doing to prevent
that decline in the first place."

The answer might have helped Somers' father, a former bus driver and
alcoholic who lost his family, his friends, his job and, eventually,
his life to his addiction.

Twice, as a high-school teen, Somers raced from his Point Grey home to
a run-down single-room-occupancy hotel after getting a call from his
dad, who had tried to kill himself.

The experience left Somers with an impression that community --
whether it's friendships, outreach workers, job support -- might have
been able to stop his father's steady decline, which is mirrored today
in the lives of other homeless people facing a similar trajectory.

It's a task that calls upo society to be more accountable, more
watchful, and to be their brother's keeper, said Somers.

"At the end of the day, we are talking about transforming how we as a
society respond to homelessness."