Good News Week

When I started travelling with Angels of the Road back in 2009… I would never have imagined I would be able to say what I am about to say, “we have come a long way baby.” For me as a worker in the shelter industry, all I ever wanted was to see progress in getting the homeless housed; so that industry resources and workers could be focused on helping the street people (drunks, druggies & drop-outs). We are unlikely to eradicate homelessness 100% unless we rethink what it means to be housed. But with affordable housing initiatives and supportive housing, we can reasonable expect a 70% reduction in homelessness.

The good news out of Homeless Hub this week is that Edmonton Alberta has reduced their homeless population by 30% and that Alberta’s 10 year plan to end homelessness is on track. Apparently 6,600 people have been re-housed, 1600 have been taken into a Housing First program for hard to house... and of those people a whopping 80% are able to maintain housing. For those of you who don’t know, the Housing First Model targets people with disabilities, mental health issue, addictions and concurrent disorders. Once this population has housing it is easier to provide consistent and ongoing supports for their health and well being. This Housing First model actually reduces costs of providing services by around 60%. Currently the cost for shelter services per homeless person is $100 a day or $3000 per month. The income support system allows $600 -$700 per month per person; which does not allow any “wiggle room” what people used to call rainy day (emergency) funds to hold people over in a minor crisis. In fact at the current rate of payout one cannot hope to meet day to day necessities. An income support system which offered a base of funds at $1200 per month would ultimately save taxpayers $1800 per month per person and give people enough income to live without additional services.

Whatever myth you are labouring under; NO this will NOT make people lazy… it is our nature to want to be productive and to contribute to society. People you are seeing caught up in this system who appear to you as lazy, are beaten down by that system and have given up on ever being more or having more. We invented this system in the 1950s and whatever small modifications we have made over the decades it still remains judgmental and punitive. We need a new way of dealing with poverty one which reflects the realities of the 21st century and the global economy. Enough said, today is about celebrating our successes. When the journey is long, knowing how far you have come always makes the road ahead a little brighter and easier to walk. Never be afraid to look back, but never stop moving forward... it is the only direction we have ;-) Have a joyous day my friends.

 

 

Deaf No More

What is most important in this time of Idle No More is dialogue. Much of what we think we know about each other was born out of a culture of colonialism. Non-Natives and Natives alike, have deep rooted and for the most part wrongheaded views about the current situation and each other.  We must seek to learn more about each other; listen and hear what the other party (group or individual) is telling us. It is reasonable, even necessary in a dialogue to express your perspective, but be prepared to be educated on points which may be wrong. Looking at a situation from another’s point of view can open whole new worlds of possibility for you.

Last year I spent a month in a town where racism is rampant and self-imposed segregation is the norm.  I came back to Hamilton exhausted…I said I could not live there because it was a constant struggle to enlighten people about each other’s cultures. Someone suggested I should “just ignore it” …with knowledge comes responsibility and it was my responsibility to speak up. I have been blessed, to be close to both the Native and non-Native cultures, so I found myself uniquely qualified to share in that situation.

It is funny but (with the exception of government) everybody with an opinion, seems to think it is time to get rid of the Indian Act. Societies grew and evolved, slaves were freed, then woman were freed now is the time for our Native brothers and sisters to be freed. The first step is to abolish any legislation that prevents equal opportunity and access based on lineage. Both African-Americans and women will tell you, what follows will be decades of growing pains. Struggles to invoke, enforce and enjoy, their new found freedoms.

Will the Natives spring full-blown into a perfect system of self-government and self-reliance?  Most unlikely, since we’ve been working on our system for thousands of years and still have not got a functioning model. But the greatest hope of all is that we can learn from each other. We (individuals, agencies, businesses, institutions and governments) need to share what we know with each other. On many levels Native culture has much to teach us especially around spiritualism, resilience and family. Dialogue is the way in which we share ideas; listening, hearing, and speaking. Keeping our hearts and minds open to learning from each other will make us better people and better neighbours.

I cannot speak to the Black experience but as a woman I can say we made more than a few mistakes when asserting our independence… I guess the biggest, was thinking that to be equal we had to be the same as men. Thankfully we now celebrate the differences. I bring this up because releasing our Native brothers/sisters from the paternalistic constraints of the Indian Act is not going to make them White. Hopefully what will evolve is a strong, proud 21^st century Native culture.
 

I look forward to participating in the Canada which will emerge from the shake-up that Idle No More is bringing our way. I will speak more on the individual issues again soon but for now, have a joyous day my friends.

 

Silent no more...

          When I was staying in Edmonton (during my research) I was standing in a lunch line one afternoon and the Native gentleman in front of me turned around, looked me in the eye and said, “ I hate White people… you diddle our children”. My response was, “Yeh, sorry ‘bout that, but nobody invited me in on that decision”.  Like most people, I resent be held accountable for things I had no control over… so we will not spend much (if any) time discussing, residential schools, small-pox conspiracies and all the past atrocities, both accidental and intentional  to colonization. I will affirm that all of these things need to be remembered because they stand as monuments to the strength, beauty and power of the Native people. Every Canadian regardless of race (or arrival date) is responsible for what comes next. This is our country, my country, a country that should stand proudly for social justice, environmental protection and equality for everyone; in an all too often unjust world. That is the Canada I want to live in and that is the future I want to help create. We can all create the Canada we want to be, by the actions we take now. As always ignorance is the enemy… so we each have a responsibility to learn, educate and share.
          The Idle No More movement has created a wonderful opportunity to dialogue on “Native” issues, because the more we learn, the more we come to realize these are HUMAN issues. We all need clean water, we all need a safe place to sleep, we all need food to eat, we all need peace, love and purpose (meaningful work). The Buddha said, "We are all alike in our desire to avoid suffering and embrace happiness," So let's stop making ill informed judgements and try to understand this situation... put ourselves in the other guys shoes/moccasins for a minute.         When I was staying in Thunder Bay my friend and I, were discussing the land claims issue (Caledonia in particular) and I presented my argument as follows. If you left me to house-sit while you went out of town for the winter (something I actually did for many winters) and I sold the house. How would you feel about that? You come home and find strangers living there and doing extensive (possibly expensive renovations).  Do they get to stay… are you forced to move? After all they bought it in good faith… It’s not like you were actually using the house, you were in Florida. Ponder that for a moment.           Another issue is the validity of the treaties themselves. These were “bad faith” contracts by most legal standards. A contract is more than just a piece of paper signed by two parties. Contracts require a meeting of the minds; both parties must have the same understanding of what is being agreed to… the party initiating the contract has a fiduciary duty to ensure that such is the case. At the time that Canada was being settled there was no such a thing as land ownership in Native culture. Natives believe(d) that we are merely custodians of the earth. I am not saying that either party was deliberately deceitful,  just that neither knew the other’s culture well enough to create a meeting of the minds.
          For anyone whining about the “tax” dollars being handed over to support the Natives, that may be entirely not true. I use tentative language here because although this rings true to me I would require a forensic accountant to verify exactly what is going on. Apparently the monies being paid out to Native Bands is from interest earned on the agreed sums from various treaty settlements.  In White-man’s terms, it would be something like this… Your grandma died and left you $5 million dollars and your parents are in charge of your trust fund. Grandma forgot to put an end date on that. So here you are 40 years old, every time you want anything you have to ask mom, she can approve or withhold the funds. It is your money, it is your life but someone else is dictating every choice you make.  You want to be a balloon vendor, but mom doesn’t understand your priorities, so no… you must live in this city and work at dad’s office or she will cut off your funds.  I bet you would be fighting in court to break the terms of the trust, but if the courts were biased in favour of your parents (friends of the family and all that)… you would have to seek a change of venue. Think of Idle No More as a change of venue, a petition to the court of public opinion.
          I guess this is going become a series of discussions since I try to keep my blogs under a 600 words (I am well in excess of 700 today) and this is a complex subject with many issues that need to be examined  so I will continue this again later. Have a joyous day my friends.

 

Report of Findings:

 Staff / Client Relations

Observations:  The staff / client relationship begins from a place of mistrust. It does not matter how welcoming, friendly and pleasant you may be, your motives are immediately assumed questionable because you are staff. To win the clients’ trust we must present with integrity; you can be the meanest S.O.B. in the building… and the clients will still respect you, if you always take a hard-line. It is equally true, that you can be Mary Poppins and as long as they can count on consistency from you… you will gain their respect and co-operation. Ideally though most staff conduct will fall somewhere in between; firm but fair, respectful and kind with all clients.
         I found staff often had unrealistic expectations for client behaviour… beyond what they would expect from anyone in a regular world environment. Don’t use curse words, don’t be cranky when staff wakes you up, don’t bicker with other residents and don’t intentionally or unintentionally break a rule. Reality check !! Clients are just people and what is reasonable behaviour in any household is the kind of behaviour you are going to see in a shelter.
         The most striking observation was how the architecture of a building impacts staff /client relations. The most significant interactions between clients and staff come from casual encounters. Shelters with open common areas (drop-in style environments) where staff could join the clients for cards, crafts or just a cup of coffee; foster better interactions then the T.V. sitting room environment. In many shelters the staff are relegated to bull-pen style reception area buffering a small bank of offices. This style proved to be quite workable, but required a few considerations be given to accessibility and traffic flow. 
         The Lookout Shelter in Vancouver B.C. had an L-shaped counter separating staff from clients but, the isle in front of the counter was wide enough that people could easily pass by when a client stopped at the desk to engage in a conversation with staff.  It was a very effective system for a facility with no common (conversational areas).  A similar bull-pen situation existed at Shepherds of Good Hope in Ottawa with the addition of counter to ceiling Plexiglas … the barrier could have been made of brick and been no more effective in alienating and dividing staff and clients. 
            I never witnessed any inappropriate interaction between staff and clients… but of course if it was inappropriate, measures would be taken by those involved, to keep it secret. As a client I was privy to confessions of undue attachment by clients toward individual staffers. On these occasions I would caution the client that they were misreading the staff person’s intention.

Conclusions: It would be my conclusion that not enough attention is paid to facilitating meaningful counselor/client style relationships between frontline staff and clients.  Frontline staff has the most interaction with clients and properly trained can be a great asset in monitoring changes in client behaviour as well as encouraging forward action for individual clients.   

Recommendations:  First when purchasing, renting or renovating a space… paramount consideration should be as to how it will facilitate or block staff / client interaction.  If your staff feels the need to protect themselves behind Plexiglas … they need to find a new line of work. The best protection you will ever have, is a good relationship with the clients.  That is not to say that there should not be a safety zone of some sort where staff could retreat too in the unlikely event of a riot… (Probably triggered by a comet hitting the building). Truthfully a well trained staff will be able to de-escalate and resolve any incident long before it reaches a crisis level.
             Proper training is a difficult issue to address. Degrees (book learnin’ as my granny called it) are very important, but street smarts (experiential learning) are also important, knowing the culture you are working with and respecting those norms will gain you the respect you need to encourage a client to move forward. The best staff you can hope for are both street smart and book smart.
            Requiring a former “street-person” to acquire certification in counseling or social work before taking a position in client care, provides the best staffing option; equally a book smart kid needs the benefit of situational training by experienced staff. Who should mentor is matter of their relationship with the clients, NOT YEARS of SERVICE; many long time employees would be best suited to the role of security guards. I am not sure that, “How to choose staff  mentors” falls under the scope of this paper … so until advised otherwise I will end here.
         Every staff person working with vulnerable clients needs to ensure that they and the client are clear as to the nature and scope of their relationship.  This is the only boundary issue any of us has as a worker… we do not need to worry about gossip or someone else’s idea of boundaries.  If your client is clear on were your professional interest begins and ends…he/she will only grow from your support and commitment.  Misunderstandings will cause confusion, humiliation and setbacks for already vulnerable people.

Joy to the World

         HAPPY HOLIDAYS everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying a Saturnalia filled with fun, friends and family. My son is making us a traditional turkey dinner (a more recent tradition given that the wild turkey is indigenous to North America), my daughter and my friend will be joining us., my youngest and her hubby and other special friends will be here in our hearts. The commercialism has fallen by the wayside with us this year…no gifts, no tree, just good people sharing time together.
         Whatever you choose as your greeting there is something about this time of year that has always made people want to celebrate. Winter solstice (December 21st) is the shortest day of the year and in farming cultures this marked the beginning of winter. I don’t know if they were celebrating 3 months off plowing and threshing or the days beginning to get longer leading into spring. Then there are all the ancient cultures who celebrate around the lunar calendar, and in the southern hemisphere they are probably celebrating a coming harvest LOL.
          Maybe at the core of it all we just like to collectively acknowledge the passing of one year into the next. 2012 is very special, not because the world didn’t implode, but because 2012 marks the beginning of a new time in human (cultural) evolution. The old paradigms do not work anymore and we are building a new world order founded on equality, freedom, love and brotherhood… things the old regime only gave lip service to. This new order is not a restructuring of political or economic power… although that will necessarily change over time because of the shift in our priorities (and our very nature as people). I have said before that we won’t have a better world until we become better people. Once we become better people, we will necessarily have a better world. As more and more of us are living this flesh RULED by spirit… the energy shifts are making it easier for more and more people to crossover; until there will one day be more compassion than greed and more love than fear. Then we will enter the time of the 8th fire…
a time of "Peace on earth & goodwill toward men".    

Report of Finding:

Management / Staff Relations:

Observations: This is a very important consideration because it directly impacts on client care. Under paid, under-appreciated employees will put in the hours but will never put their hearts into their work. Working for the Calgary Drop-In, I was exposed to the best practices in management/staff -relations (not perfect, but what is?) which provided the benchmark for my observations of other facilities. The shelter industry suffers from a shortage of funds (there is always more need, than dollars) and the people who go into human services truly want to “make a difference”, unfortunately this leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. 
         The worst offenders when it comes to pay/benefits/hours are the religious based shelters. Paying minimum wage, part-time hours (no benefits) and erratically placed on-call, short shifts; leave staff frustrated and resentful. Clients cannot build any kind of real trust relationship with the staff because in a few short months each has moved on; not because they don’t love the work or their clients… simply because they also need to eat and pay rent.
         Another issue is the use of too many unenforceable rules. Perhaps it is fear of litigation or the need to exert control over a generally chaotic environment (probably a combination of both). A couple of places had a flat out “NO TOUCHING POLICY”. This policy meant that a young woman passed out on the floor was dragged to the dorm by her equally drunk cousin, who fell down twice in the attempt. It meant that staff could not intercede in altercations, and police were being called in for minor skirmishes; which created a lot of resentment between the Ottawa Police and the Shepherds of Good Hope. The no touch policy left staff feeling vulnerable; when a client became confrontational staff would all retreat to the front office and someone would try to talk her down through the Plexiglas.  Failing that, once again the police would be called.  This was by no means the only shelter with a no touch policy but it is by far the worst case scenario because we are talking about hundreds of clients. Even in less volatile situations a no touch policy only prevents good touching (a pat on the back, a supportive hug, a reassuring hand squeeze)… it does not stop clients from assaulting each other or staff.
           Another widely used and misguided rule is the, “NO fraternization” rule. Any contact between clients and staff outside of the work environment is forbidden (not merely discouraged) and can result in dismissal. I have known many good, compassionate people who lost their jobs for acts of kindness and support given outside the parameters of their job. A worker in Hamilton was fired for giving a client a ride, who was walking to the shelter on a rainy night. The shelter management sites liability issues… what if the staff was attacked by the client?…what if there was an accident? …what if the client imagined (or was) sexually harassed?  There is under the law a level of culpability (personal responsibility for risk) assumed by both drive and passenger.
            These kinds of imagined “what if ” scenarios are the excuse for much of the wrong-headed un-enforceable rules which plague the system. Essentially the more rules an organization has, the less your staff feels trusted and supported by management. Agencies adopting the more flexible Policies & Procedures approach had better relationships with their staff. The staff were then more effective with clients because they could tailor their interactions to the clients’ individual needs. 

Conclusions: Agencies that have Policies & Procedures instead of Rules & Regulations have better management / staff relations and promote better client outcomes.  Any money saved by underpaying your staff must be offset against the ongoing cost of training their replacements.

Recommendations: First let me make the following suggestions regarding compensation/hours/shifts. Pay your people a decent starting wage for your region. If there are no other shelters (or similar human service support agencies) then; what do bank tellers make to start, or what do new hires with the construction industry make? Adjust compensation for education and experience (which would include small annual increases). If a staffer is not productive get rid of them… quickly… you cannot train lazy, selfish or arrogant out of a person, let them go before their seniority (for unionized shops) saddles you with this dead wood forever. These types of people are a burden to fellow workers and damage the moral of the whole team.  Anyone who is productive enough to keep on the job, is productive enough to deserve an annual raise.  For part-time staff give them stable hours on a specific schedule… this will allow them to get a second part-time job so they can continue to work for you until you have an opening for them full-time. Know your employees, hire good people, then get out of the way and them to do their job…if you are a large organization then know your management and trust them to do their jobs. Happy staff, is productive staff and nothing makes a person happier than a workplace where they are treated with respect.
           Now regarding the issue of un-enforceable rules; you cannot hope to cover every possible contingency, so stop trying. The best RULE I was ever given was, “never do anything you are not prepared to justify”.  This was a great rule because I could not act impulsively when following that rule. Another great RULE is to always “Always err on the side of compassion.”
            A few suggestions around fraternization; zero tolerance for counselor/ client romantic or sexual interactions. Notice I said counselor not staff… the reason for this is that some agencies are so large that many clients and staff have little or no professional interaction. Those situations need to be addressed individually. Personally my policy is to never get involved with anyone from my workplace (staff or client) I find it just complicates things.
            Another RULE would be zero tolerance for racism, sexism, any of the isms, homophobia, and bullying in any form. That applies to every dynamic…  shelters (as the name implies) need to be safe nurturing environments, where everyone is treated with kindness and/or respect.  

Interesting times we live in

After all these years working with the poor I am still surprised that there are so many people in our population who don't understand the concept of.... NO MONEY. I wrote to one of the Spiritualist churches in the town I am moving to, to ask if someone from their congregation might be willing to billot me (provide a temporary place to sleep) for a few weeks until I can get a job and find a place to live. While I have no problem with going to a shelter, I cannot this time because if you use a shelter's sevices you are barred from taking employment with them for an extended period of time (often years), and one of the main reasons for moving to this city is because I want to work for their shelter system. Back to my rant... without asking me for references from my former church or in anyway checking me out ...the secretary wrote back, "sorry we don't do that; but hotels are pretty reasonable this time of year. Hope to see you in church when you get here."  Funny part is the church has Sanctuary in its name lol. I am currently (until the end of January) recieving the EI minimum, if I pay for a hotel room there would be no money left to pay for a rent when I find a place I can afford. As always I will put faith over fear and trust that the universe will handle everything.
There is a kind of blindness among the general population about poverty in our own country. We can understand it as a tempory situational thing (like my current situation) or we assume some failing on the part of individual (or group) in question.  We build water puification systems or donate tons of food to third world villages around the globe; while our Inuit can't afford  groceries to feed their families (4 to 6X what we pay) and northern villages in Canada are without clean water. Rent for a two bedroom apartment in most cities, is so expensive a young family has to go to 3 different food banks (most only allow one visit per month) to get the family through a month.
This blindness is perpetuated by agencies; Plan Canada has a program called "Because I'm a Girl." which provides funding to help girls with educational programs, esteem building, etc, etc. On their website I saw a tab marked "our own backyard" ... wow at last somebody recognizing the need right here in Canada. WRONG ... it contained articles about fundraising being done for Plan Canada by school children in Canada... nothing about programs for girls in poor neighbourhoods in Canada.
Sorry about the A.D.D. my point is Stop making assumptions about other people, everyone does not think being down to $100 pocket money is broke. Not everyone has a savings account or stocks to cash in if things get tight for a couple of months.... there is such a thing as NO MONEY and don't suggest they get a hotel room.

On an entirely different subject thanks for visiting Spirit of the 8th Fire we have had wonderful (allbeit erratic) attendence for our first week. I hope you will find the blogs there, informative, helpful and supportive in your own journey to self-awareness and enlightnment.
Have a joyous day.