While today’s date would suggest that what I am about to tell you is an April Fool’s joke, nothing could be further from the truth. I have recently submitted a funding request to St. Albert City Council, requesting money so I can reinvent the wheel. Now, while you may think this is a foolish waste of time, a recent news release encourages me that my funding request will be approved. The news article in question, back on March 18, was the announcement of a $58,000 grant to “research St. Albert’s homeless population and develop a homelessness prevention strategy.” If we are willing to spend money to research a topic that has been researched to death, then my “wheel” project should be a hands down winner.
Now, before everyone goes off the deep end and condemns me for not caring about the homeless, let’s take a look at some of the research already done. In general, homelessness has three “groups” of causes:
1. Structural Issues: this includes the lack of affordable housing, a lack of adequate income, lack of health support, and the experience of discrimination.
2. Systems Failure: these result when other systems of support fail, and include such items as poor planning for people leaving prisons, hospitals, addiction facilities, and mentally ill individuals released without an effective treatment program in place. In addition, a lack of support for immigrants and refugees further compounds the problem.
3. Individual Factors: there are multiple factors in this group, including family violence and abuse, extreme poverty, devastating events such as a house fire, or losing a job, mental illness, addiction issues, brain injuries, fetal alcohol syndrome, physical health problems and disabilities.
What makes this issue even more complex is that homelessness is usually as a result of a combination of factors, rather than just one single factor.
I am upset with both our provincial government, and our municipal government, and here’s why:
1. The Province of Alberta has a 10-year plan to end homelessness, but consider this example. When women with young children are fleeing a violent home situation, they are permitted to access “first stage shelters,” but only for 21 days. When the 21 days are up, they must either access a ”second stage shelter” or solve the problem themselves. But, as there is virtually no funding available, last year these shelters had to turn away 18,000 families. Yet, the Province says it wants to end homelessness? Without any income or support in place, these women cannot solve their housing problems in 21 days, so they either end up homeless, or right back in the same abusive situation. As is becoming typical with this provincial government, it’s all talk and no action.
2. In regards to the city, my concern is different. I admire and support everyone who works on these issues, or similar programs such as the food bank. And, while having a prevention strategy would seem like a good idea, when you look at the causes of homelessness, they are so numerous and so massive that I think it’s pretty obvious there is no way on Earth that the Province will ever supply the huge amount of funds required to solve these issues.
There’s an old saying that “if there is no solution, then there is no problem.” When it comes to homelessness, it should say, “if there is no money, then there is no solution.”
Brian McLeod is a St. Albert resident.
