Cafe Wednesday is Cancelled This Week Only

There will be no Cafe at PHC this Wednesday, the 15th of September, as I’ll be out out of town for the day. We’ll pick up again next week, see you there!

Pizza Night!

Last weekend’s PHC Pizza Night was a success so we’re doing it again!

Saturday, September 11th from 6-8pm at PHC. Come enjoys fresh, homemade pizza and fill out a homelessness survey or come talk about ideas for addressing homelessness on Gabriola.

See you there!

Wednesday Cafes are Continuing Throughout September

Please come by PHC on Wednesdays between 1 and 3pm for a latte and a home baked snacks. This is a great opportunity to discuss the Guardian Project and the work we’ve accomplished so far.

See you there!

People for a Healthy Community (PHC) Website

The PHC website is phc-gabriola.org, please visit our website to find out more about us and to make a cash donation.

Guardian Project Update I

The process of creating and implementing this study has been a great learning experience for me and for PHC. In the course of this work we have discovered many heartbreaking stories and many stories of incredible resilience. We are excited to continue our work into the Fall and Winter to get a greater sense of what the homelessness situation looks like year round. From experience at the food bank and soup socials, we know that the number of people who need help increases in the winter months when jobs become scarce. In order to extend our study we are looking into various funding options including another work/study possibility. The end result of this work will inform decisions made regarding affordable housing on Gabriola so it is very important to get as accurate a picture of the homelessness situation on Gabriola as possible.

In the course of our work we have met with our Victoria colleagues, The Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, and with our Duncan colleague, Anne Balding who is the Housing Programs Coordinator for the Cowichan Valley Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). We had a fantastic talk with these folks and were able to share some really valuable information and ideas. One piece of information that the Greater Victoria Coalition shared with us was a way of classifying the spectrum of homelessness that offers more nuances and accuracy. This classification system is called the European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS) and the classification terms they use are:

• Rooflessness (sleeping rough)
• Houselessness (temporarily sheltered in an institution or emergency shelter)
• Insecure Housing (no security of tenure, domestic violence, threat of eviction)
• Inadequate Housing (Unfit living conditions, overcrowding, lack of basic amenities)

We have adopted this classification system as we feel it more accurately represents the variety of situations that we consider homelessness on Gabriola.

Another idea that came out of our meeting with our Victoria and Duncan colleagues is the need for preventative measures that target people who are in transition or crises so that they do not become homeless. We believe that the best way to end homelessness is to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. Preventative measures include smoothing the transition from teenage-hood to adulthood and offering people support when they first experience crises.

The main difficulty of our study has been in getting people to come forward and share their stories, because of this we have begun offering incentives such as Cafe Wednesdays, when guests can come to PHC to enjoy a latte and home made goodies and talk about homelessness; and a pizza night, where we made our own pizzas and brought ideas to the table about possible solutions to homelessness that would work for those most at risk. The response to these incentives has been good, but we still need to hear more voices and stories to make this study as valuable a document as it can be.

Another approach we’ve tried and which has been met with mixed results is the “Snowball” research method where we ask those who have completed the survey to recruit another person to do the survey and so on. Unfortunately, people are reluctant to pass it on to their friends who are not regular PHC clients. The good news is that following our last articles in the Sounder and the Shingle we got an amazing response from folks who wanted to do the survey as well as challenge us on our definitions of homelessness and even offer affordable housing. We’re hoping that we get the same kind of response this time around. If you haven’t already done the survey, now is the time as this portion of the study will close on October 1^st. If you have done the survey, thank you, your opinions, ideas and experiences are essential to the process. For more information visit the links above or call us at 250.325.7311, we look forward to hearing your story.

What is The Gabriola Guardian Project?

Who is PHC?

People for a Healthy Community (PHC) is for everyone on Gabriola. We believe that all of us are needed to help fulfil our aim of an inclusive, strong, prosperous community that is responsive, caring and sustainable. By building local capacity and connections we strengthen the social networks that make Gabriola a safe and healthy place to live. PHC works to support the health and well being of our community including children, families and individuals by offering a food bank, soup socials, employment counselling, housing support, citizen advocate consulting and community gardens.

Gabriola Guardian Project: The Issue

Since January 2009 we have seen the need for appropriate and affordable housing amplified by the economic downturn. Gabriola Island is suffering with businesses closing, reduced tourism and lower retail sales. At PHC we hear more often about people living in garden sheds, shacks with no running water or bathroom facilities, or worse: people sleeping in the woods in make shift homes. Our Official Community Plan (OCP) and subsequent land use bylaws do not allow for multifamily residential, secondary suites or emergency housing. The Islands Trust is in the midst of a targeted review and rewrite of the OCP and have identified affordable housing, food security and economic sustainability as key areas of focus.

Our experience indicates the need for healthy, affordable, long-term housing is increasing on a daily basis. This, coupled with the lack of reliable employment at a living wage, is causing young families to move off the island and we are seeing youth and young adults moving to the city because they can’t get adequate employment or affordable housing here; in short, they see no future for themselves here. Single parents and people on disability and social assistance are fearful of having their utilities shut off for lack of payment, they have little or no firewood in the cold winter months, they may not have access to potable water and too often children will not have their basic needs met because of the high cost of rent on the island. Many of PHC’s clients face multiple barriers (such as mental illness, addictions, physical disabilities, etc.) and the lack of safe and healthy housing exacerbates these problems, where a warm bode may be just the medicine needed.

On top of this, local businesses are often struggling to keep employees because there is no housing. In some cases employers have had to purchase or rent accommodations in order to keep their staff.

How do we solve these problems? The Gabriola Guardian Project: Everyone Deserves a Home

In the fall of 2009 PHC began working with a Housing Task Force, an adhoc group of concerned citizens that was borne out of a community workshop on affordable housing. This task force is focusing on:

• Developing a Housing Organization
• Researching and finding solutions for:
  • Seniors’ housing including ways to assist ageing in place
  • Supported living for those with special needs
  • Supporting homeless, at risk of homeless and those with persistent multiple barriers
  • Shared land/housing
• Educating the community on current about current housing issues and possible solutions
• Providing input to Islands Trust for the Official Community Plan review

In February PHC developed a program concept, The Gabriola Guardian Project: Everyone Deserves a Home in response to the high cost and low availability of appropriate and affordable housing on the island. We have developed a multifaceted collaborative program to help solve this systemic issue. Components of the program include:

• The development of a comprehensive and confidential database linking landlords and potential tenants with a special focus on those who are hard to house;

• A homelessness study: with the help of Service Canada Summer Student grant we have developed a survey and have begun gathering information about the number of people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or in need of affordable housing on the island. The summer student is supported by and advisory group that includes professionals as well as clients of PHC. We are hoping to secure further funding so that our study reflects the nature of homelessness on Gabriola throughout the year. The information gathered will be invaluable to the development of an affordable housing strategy which PHC hopes to complete in collaboration with the community of Gabriola and the Islands Trust;

• The Circle of Care Program. The concept for the Circle of Care Program came from meetings with community volunteers (a retired mental health worker, university professors, alternative health care professionals, a community nurse practitioner, a retired community front line worker, PHC board members and staff). Together we identified that those who are chronically hard to house are often those with persistent multiple barriers. This group of people often find it difficult to cope with life skills such as housekeeping, cooking, financial management and other chores. These people become unpopular tenants because they can’t properly care for their housing, they mismanage their finances and/or they behave inappropriately which causes problems with neighbours. Our hope is to provide a program manager who will work directly with these clients and rally the volunteer resources as needed. We currently have a range of ready willing and able volunteers who can offer services and diverse as housekeeping, addictions counselling and acupuncture.

Another component of the Circle of Care Program is an emergency fund that will help clients with utility payments, the cost of firewood, potable water and damage deposits. Money from this fund will be payed directly to the supplier and we hope to amass at least $2,500 for the use of many. Two anonymous donors have already kicked in with generous donations of $500 and $1,000. This fund has already been used to prevent the disruption of electrical service to two families as well as to provide emergency housing for a pregnant mom and her two year old child.

• A community Forum: Given the timeliness of the re-write of our OCP and some of the fear and resistance from some Gabriolans, it would be valuable to host a Community Forum on the topic of Affordable Housing. This will be an opportunity to bring together service providers (such as RCMP, medical professionals, fire department, etc.) with local employers, elected officials and those in need of appropriate affordable housing. A key component of the forum would be to educate the community in the issues homelessness and the dire need for affordable housing on Gabriola. The forum will include key note speakers who have dealt with homelessness and affordable housing in similarly rural areas and will also include a full day of workshops designed to involve the community in the process of coming up with workable solutions to these crises.

• An Affordable Housing Strategy: The ultimate goals of our project is to develop an affordable housing strategy. We believe this will be a living document, but in order to fully influence the OCP and land use bylaws a realistic, well thought out strategy is required. The basis of our work in this area is formed by the Gabriola Island Affordable Housing Needs Assessment that was completed in 2009 and the more recent Affordable Housing Toolkit which was completed by contract for the Islands Trust. We have confidence that the engagement of an experienced consultant and the input of Housing Task Force will ensure a credible, realistic and fulsome document.

Saturday Market

Look for us this weekend at the Saturday Market at Agi Hall. We will be conducting a one question survey and entering names for a fantastic draw. See you there!

Welcome to the new Gabriola Guardian Project Blog!

This blog is a place for people to come to learn about the Gabriola Guardian Project and to share their ideas and views about homelessness on Gabriola.  Please feel free to comment on any of our posts and to add your own stories and experiences.  The ultimate goal of this project is to come up with workable solutions to the homelessness issue on Gabriola and we can’t do that without the participation of Gabriolans at large.  Homelessness is an issue that concerns all of us and one that can only be solved from within our community.

This project is not only a homelessness study, it will also include a fall forum that will bring together leaders, decision-makers and those whose lives are most affected by homelessness.  Through the forum, we hope to awaken interest within the wider public who may not be aware of the issue and to workshop possible solutions that work for the entire community and that respect Gabriola’s unique ecological nature.

We need as much participation and support from the community as possible and we look forward to hearing from you!