Report of Findings around Food & Nutrition

Hi Everyone this is the next segment in my Report of Findings from my time living in Canada's shelters. It is not so opinionated or entertaining as most of my blogs but, it is the truth and if you want to learn about how the homeless in Canada are living this is a must read. It is twice as long as the usual blog (really it is only eqaul to 4 typed pages). As I have said before nothing in this report is to be taken as an indictment of the shelter industry, everyone is doing the best they can under the circumstances. But this is the reality and we have to own that. Feel free to comment and be kind on spelling and grammer, it is only the first draft. Have a joyus day Bonny

Meal Programs:  

Free Food:

           Meal programs vary widely depending on the source… but generally a person living homeless in Canada can expect meals to be very high in carbohydrate fillers, usually pasta, rice and potatoes in that order. Meat protein is included in very small quantities and is often of questionable origin (just meaning unrecognizable by sight or taste). There is equally limited access to the fiber provided by fresh vegetables or fruit. Grains are accessed through the use of day old (or 3 day old) bread products served dry (unbuttered).
          The least nutritious meals were provided at centres which serve multiple meals per day to a large client base. Such programs rely heavily on donated food and there are storage issues, a well as the problem of anticipating what will be needed, so many considerations effecting these programs, making it difficult to provide good meals on a regular basis. In these situations it is easier to grind up 100 lbs of pork into a pasta dish then it is to fry 400 pork cutlets. In an effort to prevent any waste all leftover meat is chopped or dumped together into a soup… which provides endless lunchtime entertainment (speculation).
          Next up the culinary food chain are facilities providing one meal per day or in some cases per week. This is often done by churches or benevolent societies. They do it once and generally provide more balance meals. Breakfast programs will include cereal with milk and/or egg in some form, toast, juice and or a piece of fruit and coffee. Lunch programs are where we see the term soup kitchen applied seriously. Low sodium soup served with a half sandwich or buttered roll/bread… juice (this term is applied loosely and includes powdered drink mixes) but the best places offer milk as an option. Dinner has an identifiable meat source and a couple of times a week you might even need to employ a plastic knife… potatoes show up more often; with sides of vegetables, the occasional wilty salad and from time to time even condiments.  In other words, something a little closer to what you would call a “home cooked” meal.  
          Some very good meals for the homeless were delivered at the smaller shelters, these were available only to people who were sleeping in their sleep programs. The Lookout shelter in Vancouver served three meals a day, to two seatings of 60 people each. The meals were always well balanced and nutritious with fresh fruit, cereal, milk and juice in the mornings; salad with lunch and meat with dinner. This was an acceptable option in Vancouver or Edmonton where there are several other options for the homeless (or poor) to access meals. Calgarians have few options outside of the DI so their meal program must be open to the entire homeless community.

Low Cost Food

       I only found this service in the DTES (down town east side of Vancouver)… but it is a model worth looking at for other agencies. The Carnegie Centre is a community centre on the corner of Hastings and Main. They have a cafeteria style restaurant where they sell $2 - $3 “blue plate specials” and low cost accompaniments (sides, desserts, beverages). The best run of the cheap meal programs is provided by the Evelyn Saller Centre on Alexander St in the DTES “The 44” as it is popularly know , serves three meals a day at a mere $2 per meal. That is all inclusive… and meals are usually well balanced. Menus are posted weekly on the door and except for the occasional swapping out of rice for potatoes things are usually as they were predicted. Meals can be purchased individually for cash or in bulk at the beginning of the month. Under some circumstances people recieving income support can have a monthly meal card issued through the area Social Assistance office.  The pre-purchased meals are listed in a ledger which is kept at the cash register and marked off as used.

Conclusion: I met a worker in Regina who plans to do her thesis on Nutrition and Homelessness… I would be interested in what she finds. When I was doing my research I developed a problem with my ligaments, as well as a severe weight gain, and dangerously low iron and vitamin D levels. My doctor here in Ontario has had me on several supplements over the past year in an effort to recover my health.   
On the plus side for street people the high carb diet provides quickly accessed energy stores for a lifestyle which often sees them going days without food. That fact was pointed out to me by a former street person.
          Cities with multiple sources of free food, especially agencies/churches providing one meal per day or week have better nutrition over all. A single source for multiple meals, while convenient, struggles with the cost of providing meat protein and/or fresh produce. This also removes the need for our clients to get out and do a little walking between meals… which is for some their only source of exercise. Edmonton had an excellent network of meal providers, all within a 6 block radius of Bissell Centre drop-in on Boyle Street.

Recommendations: There is not much to recommend here, everyone is doing the best they can with what they have to work with. My only suggestion is that, agencies could communicate with each other to ensure all days are covered with a couple of options for each meal. In Regina, women had 0 – Breakfasts… 3 Lunches & 5- dinners per week; with a co-ed Sunday meal at the Marion Centre which normally only caters to males (3 meals per day 7 days per week).
         It would also be a good idea if sleep programs could make multi-vitamins available to client who might be interested in dietary supplements.

Yes, I get angry too

Hi everyone this will be the first blog attempted in Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and if I can't resist the urge to edit as I go, I may have to do this job blind folded. So welcome to the wonderful world of visual aids. Just shy of 400 words and I give up…for now. 

There is an arrogance in North Americans that gets me incredibly frustrated (even angry). When the western delegation went to North Korea a few weeks ago, some of our leaders suggested it was wrong for the North Korean government to be putting money into a space launch when people in their country are going hungry. Canada has its own poverty and hunger problems that are not being properly dealt with, yet we're asking other countries to put human rights first. The audacity! Call your local food bank if you want to know how many kids are going hungry in Canada while our government spends money sending our politicians overseas to criticize others.
Then yesterday as I watched my television I saw an ad from an aide agency... they want your money and volunteers to go around the world to create clean water systems in poor third world villages. This made me angry… not that I begrudge third world villages clean water systems, but because there are villages in this country where people are living without clean water. Is it simply that the good people of these agencies are unaware of the need here in Canada? These are Native reserves which are remote and difficult to access... but it can't be any more difficult than accessing a remote village in South America or Africa. 
I'm trying to understand why we overlook our own people. It can't be racism,,, South Americans are brown, Africans are black; I can't imagine drawing the compassion line at Red. It seems much more likely that we fail to take action locally because we do not want to believe such a thing can happen in Canada. Perhaps it is because we expect our government to take care of it. Under the Indian Act, isn’t the federal government mandated to care for the Native reservations? I don't know enough about the Indian act venture an opinion but, even within the Native communities there are mixed feelings about the efficacy of that particular legislation. The important thing to note is that these villages have been waiting decades and will wait decades more before the government takes action. Why don't they fix it themselves? A lack of expertise and money , is my guess. It would be easy to say, “If conditions on the reserve suck so bad, why don’t they just move?”  For the same reason the poor in those third world villages don’t fix it themselves or move… or why the poor didn’t evacuate New Orleans before Katrina hit… no place to go and no money to get there. Altruism doesn’t judge or ask why… it just does what needs to be done to make the world a better place.  
Today I just want to ask those aide agencies how do our third world villages get on your recipient list? Where do we apply? Or are you like the CIA, only mandated to serve outside your homeland? Perhaps there is an aide agency in Kenya that will fly a crew over to help our struggling villages.
Before we smugly go flying around the world fixing everyone else's problems, let’s make it a priority to heal our own country. Take your drills and your volunteers and your hammers and whatever the hell else you are using; and go up north to one of these villages and spend your summer doing what you do, for our people, in our country. That's a project I'd volunteer for.

Apologies to my friends.

Just a quick note to explain what will be an extended absence from blogging and pretty much everything else that requires visual acuity. On the up side the injections to treat my Blepharospasm worked very well. I can now keep my eyes open any time I want. However there has been an unexpected side effect…. My vision is blurred; my eyes are watery and burn like they have chlorine in them. It has been 10 days with no change. I take antihistamines, use eye drops to no avail. So until this gets better or until I can get a copy of voice to print software (probably by end of the month) my writing endeavors are on hold. Thanks for understanding…. Have a joyous day my friends,

Sleep Programs: Conclusions & Recommendations

Conclusions: By attempting to service all our client populations under one roof we fail to properly serve anyone. The protocols we use to manage large and /or blended populations strips away what little dignity and sense of self may be remaining from people who are already fragile. As a group the current system provides adequately for the barest necessities, supervised and relatively safe places to sleep (spend the night).  For the individual client having to stand on public display (possibly in their hometown) is demeaning. There is a loss of autonomy in the tightly controlled environment of the shelter… to the point where one starts to wonder if they even remember “how” to make a decision for themselves. Uncertainty about the disposition (drunk/sober/crazy/sane/healthy/sick) of other the clients, causes people in sleep programs to isolate. This adds to the growing feeling of invisibility; which quickly erodes a person’s ability to reintegrate into society.

Recommendations: The easiest recommendation to implement would be separating the populations. Many sleep programs already separate the intoxicated clients for the safety reasons as given in the previous blog. Separation within the other population groups is of far greater concern when it comes to the delivery of reintegration services. Elimination of the line-up check-in process would be of benefit to clients from a mental health standpoint. Each agency would have to determine what would work best for it depending on several variables like size of population, number of staff, space etc. I would suggest designating a time (say the 2 hours prior to dorm opening) when clients could walk-in and sign-up for a bed.   Anyone not claiming their bed within 1 hour of dorm opening will be bumped. Anyone showing up intoxicated to claim their bed can be refused for the night, at the discretion of the staff. Exception would have to be made for people whose employment prevented them from attending early sign. Day labourers could phone-in their sign-up and confirm with a copy of their work ticket (employed should have a pay-stub on file with the shelter) when they present to claim their bed. Think of eliminating these humiliating line-ups as “harm reduction” for our sober clients.
Government funding for shelter sleep programs needs to change, these programs should be funded by the bed… NOT by the head. This change would result in more stable funding for the agencies from one year to the next. It would also encourage greater collaboration between agencies which would allow for the employment of a diversified shelter model where the various populations are sheltered in different locations. This change would reduce psychological damage and speed up reintegration of the homeless (poor).
 Also every single effort must be made to keep people housed… provincial social service agencies should NEVER tell someone to stay at a shelter because it is going to take 2 months to process their request for social assistance. This is an emergency…. and emergency protocols must be created to reduce the incidents of poverty induced homelessness in this country.

Observations Part 2: Sleep Programs

Shelters (Sleep Programs):
          The main distinction between shelters is if clients are allowed access while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Shelters which allow the intoxicated (under the influence of drugs or alcohol) have harm reduction designated sleep areas. I have never seen a shelter exclusively dedicated to harm reduction.  All common areas of the building are shared by all populations. Shelters which do not allow intoxicated people, do however allow clients in a state of withdrawal, or unmedicated, so the designation of “DRY” in no way reduces the level of chaos within the shelter environment.
         The rules around shelter use are meant to manage large numbers of people and equally important to provide the necessary “head count” for funding application to various levels of government. First you must stand in line sometimes for more than an hour to ensure you get a bed. Often these lines are outside the building where anyone driving by might see you. Once signed in your movements are restricted to specific areas and specific times. You are required to turn in personal property regardless of any consideration for your ability to manage your behaviour. Your work tools or personally purchased aspirins must all be accessed through the office and often on a limited schedule. Many places do not allow food in the dorm areas…so anything you bring in for yourself is unsecured in a publicly accessed kitchen area. Other places allowed no outside food at all… you eat only what is provided exactly when it is provided. You get up when you are told, leave when you are told (regardless of your mental or physical condition) and are allowed to return when you are told you can return. In most shelters personal property can be searched and seized by staff (something as innocuous as a nail-clipper can be seized as a weapon), a necessary evil in the current shelter system with our blended populations.
         Harm Reduction areas, for clients under the influence of drugs or alcohol, are designed more for safety than comfort. Matts placed on the floor or low lying cots prevent serious injury from falling out of bed. As much space as possible is allowed between matts so the staff or paramedics can respond to client emergencies. Clients’ belongs are kept next to their matt and carried in and out with them each day… only a handful of places provide storage for this group. Bag searches our done regularly… with smaller population everyone is searched both entering and leaving the facility.
        Transient beds are issued on a nightly basis for clients who are clean & sober… today. The smell of body oder, urine etc...so prevelant in Harm Reduction is decidedly less conspicuous in transient areas. A little more attention is paid to comfort here, with beds or bunks replacing matts. Clients do NOT have assigned beds; one must line-up and sign in each night and there is some storage available to regular users over the short term.        
        Transitional sleep programs are open to persons who return to the facility clean & sober on a regular basis. The bed is yours until you miss curfew, this varies from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. depending on the facility. The advantage for the facility, of these quasi permanent beds; is the reduction in laundry, sheets need only be changed weekly. You are allowed to leave your property behind during the day and some shelters even have lockers to secure your belongings. This is a great benefit to client who have to keep appointments with professionals to assist in moving forward out of the shelter and back into the community. Lockers can always be accessed by staff and searched for contraband (a reasonable expectation). 

I cannot believe how hard it is to separate observations from conclusions and recommendation; it all kinda runs together in my head. This is just the first draft so I will continue with this format .... for now. Who knows what the final product will look like. If you have any thoughts or suggestions I am always happy to hear from you. It is all about creating a concise and readable report.

Have a joyous day my friends. 

Observations: Part 1 Demographic

Observations:
         Who is Homeless: First I observed that the homeless populations in other cities were very similar to that of Calgary with 50% being homeless primarily due to poverty, 20% being due to medical issues mostly mental health issues and 30% being street people struggling with addiction, concurrent disorders and/or undiagnosed mental illness. These numbers break down a bit differently in the DTES (Down Town East Side) Vancouver with easily 50% being street people.
         Some sources would like to have us believe that mental health issues account for 80% of homelessness, this very misleading (albeit comforting) because it includes people dealing with situational depression, which I contend is a normal response to finding oneself homeless. Not being depressed by such circumstances, would indicate something very mentally unhealthy within the subject’s thinking. The same could be said regarding drinking… not every homeless person who drinks is homeless because of alcohol addiction. Many are drinking as a coping mechanism for a difficult situation; for self-medicating the depression or as a sleep aide; lack of privacy, ongoing noise from other residents, 24hr lighting, antiseptic smells and body odors all make normal sleep difficult to achieve.
           Most homeless from all three population groups (poor, street people, medicals) are white males age 20 – 60… with visible minorities from the same age group comprising about 10% of the overall population. This shifts slightly as we move from east to west, homelessness among the urban Native population is visibly smaller east of Thunder Bay. There may be several factors at work, but from my conversations with Natives it would seem that conditions on eastern reserves are somewhat better than those of their western counterparts. Women of all populations (poor, street people, medicals) and age groups account for about 20% of homeless.
          Newfoundland had no year-round shelters… which I was given to understand would be changing as of winter 2011. This is due in part to a vigorous re-housing program for medicals… and the low level of migrant populations. Anyone who lives on the rock has family or friends who will put them up at least part of the time. Those who are completely on their own camp out or squat over the summer months. During the winter months there is an Inn from the Cold type sleep program in various church basements. Since I was there in summer, I only have reports from local social workers to confirm the above.
           Saskatchewan had a lower percentage of female homeless… I am not sure why that is different. The shelter where I stayed was dry and seemed to function as a stepping stone for woman entering a rehab program.  If you were not in the rehab program the bed was billed out at $10 per day for a stay up to one month. When I asked the women who lived among the street population where they would sleep, all seemed to have a place of their own. Very often they would invite me to come spend the night with them.  The women there seem to look out for each other... this is something of a "chicken and egg". 
      Edmonton has a commendable re-housing program for medicals which is operated by a group called E4C… this allows a distinguishable difference in the demographic between Edmonton and Calgary.  Also I observed fewer seniors using the shelters in Vancouver due to B.C. government making susidized housing for 50+ (drunk or not) a priority.

If you have been following me for a while you know I am NOT a supporter of subsidized housing. Too much graft and corruption, tax payers do not need that.
Have a joyous day.           

The Beginning of the End

Hi Friends, it has been a month since I last blogged and I apologize for that, the truth is that when I can make time to write I am working on the report of my findings. Basically just summing up what I have learned about the shelter system and services to the homeless across Canada. I’m thinking I’ll share it with you as I go along… hope you find it interesting. Today I will include the prologue and methodology section, pretty boring stuff but necessary to understanding the rest of the paper. Next time we will get into the observations. Please understand the paper is divided into sections Observations followed by Conclusions which is followed by Recommendation. What will appear are just observations… there is no judgment being made here; so don’t get all huffy and defensive on me. Nobody on the planet has more respect and appreciation for the hard work, dedication and commitment of people working in the shelter industry, than I do.

A REPORT of FINDING for Angels of the Road
Two years of living with Canada’s Homeless

Prolog:
         Initially it was my intention to present these findings to you as a formal research paper, however I find myself uncomfortable using that format. I will submit this report written in the first person because I lived it in the first person, and I funded it in the first person.  My only responsibility here is to the truth, good or bad.
         I will not waste valuable space listing my credentials; for more information than you could possibly want to know about me, please go to my website www.AngelsOfTheRoad.com  and click the ABOUT tab. You will find my resume, biography, philosophy and a brief synopsis of “the journey” (as I like to call it).
        This study is meant as a qualitative analysis of program delivery to homeless and indigent population. No hard statistics have been kept… those are available through any number of government departments and stakeholder organizations. The study makes no mention of individual facilities, unless they stand as a strong example of success (or failure) for other agencies to use as learning models. No single agency has it all wrong or all right, with the possible exception of Centre 454 in Ottawa which is doing stellar work in all areas of drop-in services.
         In no way should this document be taken as an indictment of the shelter industry. Almost everything I experienced indicates good people doing the best they can with the limited resources and information which was available. It is my sincerest hope that the shelter industry, social planners, and researchers in this field will use these finding to guide the evolution of service delivery to Canada’s homeless. Resulting in shorter shelter stays with improved recovery and reintegration for all client populations.

The content of this document and the Angels of the Road website/blog site is copywrited to the author / researcher Bonny L. Cameron (me) and must be credited accordingly in any reproduction or distribution of these documents in whole or in part. The free (and wide) distribution of these copywrited materials is encouraged; however if anyone profits (financially) from the use of same, an appropriate compensation to the author can be made by donation at the www.AngelsOfTheRoad.com website.
 

An Examination of the Shelter Industry in Canada 
& the Efficacy of Program Delivery
 as It Impacts Client Outcomes.
(working title)

Abstract:
          This observer/participant study involved almost two years of information gathering which was done from May 2009 – October 2011 (less 4 vacations of approximately 1 month) . The study took place in 15 cities throughout Canada, except (due to accessibility and funding issues) the far north. Over that period of time I lived in 12 shelters with capacities ranging from 8 – 300 occupants. Attended programs offered to the homeless through 15 drop-in centres and accessed 24 meal programs.
          The study involved total immersion with the subject population. Stays varied from 3 weeks to 4 months depending on the size of the homeless population with whom I was assimilating.

Methodology:

Constant for this project was the use of a single researcher, me…
Variables were basically everything else; size of facility/ population/ protocols/ staffing/ orientation (secular or religious)/ provincial government priorities/ funding sources/ etc. etc. etc.
Veracity: Anyone wishing to verify my results can do so by simply repeating this process for themselves.

           I presented myself as a middle-aged woman, between jobs, without ties to the city, checking into the potential job market and looking for a new place to settle down (all of which was quite true).           
           It is human nature to modify our behaviour when we are being observed; so to prevent contamination of the study, the subject staffers and clients were not informed of the my full purpose until the end stages of each stay. I lived with and among the client population for up to 4 months at a time with 4 visits home to Calgary of 4-5 weeks between each leg of the journey dubbed Angels of the Road. This immersion process allowed me to get unvarnished feedback from clients. Further I was able to observe client to client, staff to client and management to staff interactions on an ongoing basis revealing patterns of interconnectedness between these. 

Ok Guys that is today's installment, I promise others will be shorter... if you have visited the website lately you may have noticed that I removed the guest page... my overnight hit count jump to 55 so I suspect that someone had place a link to porn on the page. Counts are now back to normal 15 overnights and 40ish per diam. I have no problem with what consenting adults choose to do in their spare time but that is not what Angels of the Road is about, Thanks for understanding...Have a joyous day.