Homeless mentally ill

Madeline is one busy lady. We’re in the middle of Stampede and the PM is in town. Nevertheless, because of the issue of homelessness and the mentally ill, she set aside a half hour to see me in her office. It was a very hot afternoon.

Sitting together at her conference desk, she explained the issue of homelessness and the mentally ill from someone at the top. Madeline is the alderman for the downtown ward and her ward contains, by far, the most number of homeless people. She also voted against an injection of housing cash from the province saying that we need to direct our attention to people with addictions and mental illness first. I thought it was a gutsy move and that’s why I wanted to listen to what she had to say in more detail.

“The keys to the future,” she began, “lie with housing first. People have to have a home with services in conjunction with the home.”

“We must make sure people have access to psychiatric services,” she said.

I had said that it is very difficult for homeless people to get access to psychiatrists and almost impossible to get to a supply of medication.

“We need to reduce the time in shelters and get to services,” she said agreeing, “Too much time is spent preparing people for a future.

“We need to look carefully first at the hardest to house,” she explained, “At the moment, what we do in the city is , we just rely on the waiting list of the Calgary Housing Society.

“It has an independent board and they decide on who to house first based on management. We could review this as a city to see if money goes more effectively to the wait list.

“More than 2/3 of the homeless are single men and they don’t figure in the Calgary Housing Society’s waiting list.”

She paused. She took a sip on her diet coke and thought momentarily.

“The amount of homeless we have is indicative that the market economy is not working,” she said.

I have to admit, that is a powerful statement.

“We need some softening. We have to understand when government contributes more to people, it is a huge benefit to society,” she said.

“When we closed mental institutions it was seen as a cost cutting measure and not enough was invested in the resultant programs,” she said.

We discussed that point for a little bit. It seems from the process of deinstitutionalization, about 20 years ago, the mental institutions were simply shut down and the patients were sent out onto the street to fend for themselves. There was simply nothing done for them. Madeline nodded in agreement.

“What worries me so much these days,” she said, “is the increase of drug use with mental illness. So many people are put in harm’s way. It is very disturbing …” She paused and for a moment appeared, in a way, very uncomfortable thinking of the mentally ill toe to toe with the drug community.

She continued, “We haven’t yet been able to build suburbs capable of including all members of society.” She said the suburbs are designed for young married couples with small children. “If you’re one of them, then there’s a lot for you,” she said.

“But,” she said, “If you don’t fit in, there’s no where else to go. You have to go downtown, and the downtown core becomes a haven for the drug trade.

“And if you’re mentally ill,” I interjected, “all you have is the river.”

She smiled and looked at me as if to say, ‘you got it.’

She recommended a book titled “Million Dollar Murray”. Here’s the Google link: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=million+dollar+murray&btnG=Google+Search&meta.

A cursory glance at the site proposes that it’s probably easier, by far, to solve the problem than to manage it, which is what I’ve been trying to articulate all along. But that’s another story. I’ll get onto it.

Madeline and I said our farewells; I said thanks and headed off.