Say hello to Austin

Hey, you might want to check out http://www.austinmardon.org/. It’s Austin’s website. Austin Mardon just won the Order of Canada about a week and a half ago. He won it for his work with the homeless mentally ill. His list of achievements are very long and I encourage you to give his site a boo. Also, click on this "make Austin an MBE" and submit your vote.

We talked for about half an hour today over the phone. I’ll relate a bit about his point of view and can hopefully expand in the future.

“There are approximately 700 homeless schizophrenics in Calgary. That’s specifically homeless schizophrenics rather than mentally ill people in general. There are other diseases like manic depression and so on,” he said.

He explained that work in New York City had shown that a program of getting medication to the homeless mentally ill, in the form of injections every other week, had resulted in a huge success rate.

“With Risperdal Consta, you would only need a nurse to give an injection once every two weeks, and a general practitioner to initially diagnose the homeless schizophrenic,” he said.

“This is not a homeless issue,” he emphasized, “It’s a medical issue.”

He added that the program required the permission of the person undergoing the program.

“What they did,” he said, “was they provided the person’s welfare check with a very good meal along with the injection.”

”It is much easier to manage an injection once every two weeks logistically and financially than to give a pill every day,” he explained,

“Government and the public keep talking about solving the homeless problem. Ironically Risperdal Consta could solve the problem of schizophrenic homelessness. Without Risperdal Consta the government could spend many millions dollars treating homeless schizophrenics without making any impact whatsoever,” he said.

Austin also pointed out that those who suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease receive treatment and help but those who are homeless and mentally ill do not.

“There is such a stigma against mental illness,” he said.

We talked for a bit about different medications and both of us agree on the benefits of Risperdal. He was surprised to learn there is a generic for the drug in pill form that is very cheap. However, he argued that just giving the homeless mentally ill a bottle of pills to try and hang on to and self-regulate their medications is foolish to say the least. “There is no way that a homeless mentally ill person could do that,” he said. He argues that the injection once every two weeks is a much better way to go.

“There needs to be established a social connection with the broader community, you know, in shelters with the medical community. You don’t need that much … you need to be creative.

“One last thing … with generations past if someone became psychotic and was homeless they attempted to house them, usually in squalid conditions, in rural houses or warehouses, but we don’t even do that today. And the irony is that we have medical treatment.

“For example, John Nash who won the Nobel Prize in 1992 was actually homeless at several points in his life. Some of the people who are homeless, if given medical treatment rather than being ignored, might actually get into the process of recovery.

“What I’ve seen is the incredible results of people who have cooperated with their treatment. I believe there is hope. It involves the medical community.”

Trying to get through to the Mayor

It has been a while since I posted here. I’ve moved to High River south of Calgary and had to get into the joys of starting a new job. It’s been a hectic past three weeks.

So today I figured that since there seems to be so much ink in the Herald on the plight of the mentally ill in Calgary, coupled with parallel article on homelessness, I should call in on the mayor and ask what he thinks of the whole thing.

It’s easy to get to the mayor’s office. The number is right on the net. Your request for an interview is passed to Mark Henry, the mayor’s chief of staff. He called back within an hour.

What’s the city’s position on the homeless mentally ill?

“It’s under provincial jurisdiction,” said Mark, “Housing is provincial and mental illness is a provincial matter.”

“Are you saying you have nothing to do with the homeless mentally ill in Calgary?” I asked.

“It’s a provincial matter,” he replied.

“Can I ask the mayor’s position on the fact there are anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 severely mentally ill people living on the river banks in Calgary?” I continued.

“The position, as I said before, is that it is a provincial matter,” he replied, “You should try calling Ms. Fritz, the associate minister in Edmonton.”

“I already have the call in,” I replied, “Thanks.”

And that was about it.

Interview with Dr. Nordli

This post is a bit of a mish-mash of different things…

Dr. Nordli and I have been friends ever since I came back from New Zealand. She’s a wonderful doctor who takes a real interest in getting her patients better. She’s outspoken as sin, but a heck of a doctor.

She’s worked for six years in the Ponoka institution which is a world class hospital for brain damage and has a long history in treating people with mental illness. Dr. Nordli will be missed there by staff and patients.

If you happen to be severely mentally ill, and you are very lucky, you end up in Ponoka. According to what Dr. Nordli says, you’ll only be in there, usually, for three to four weeks. I don’t know yet what the follow-up is to your stay. That is something I have to look up.

Now, last Thursday, (and this is Monday), the Calgary police beefed up their personnel on the lower east side due to a “spike” in recent crime.

“There has been an increase in arrests,” said S/Sgt Barry Balerud. He said there have been 33 arrests so far and 15 of them are criminal code offences, mostly involving drugs.

He explained there is a lot of criminal activity in the area, mostly drug trafficking.

S/Sgt Balerud also explained that the purpose of the police crackdown was not to deal with the homeless or mentally ill; they were looking for criminal activity in particular. He said they do have a Mobile Response Team in the downtown core run by the Calgary Health Centre that they call on in cases of coming across people with mental illness issues.

However, he said, he did not know of anyone calling on the unit or of dealing with anyone with mental illness issues during the crackdown. He said he’s been out there himself and even in talking with fellow officers, there has been no one taken to the psych ward since Thursday as far as he is aware.

I’m also waiting for a download of info from Emergency Medical Services who deal with picking up mentally ill people on the street and getting them to a hospital if called upon by police.

Paul Lapointe of EMS explained that they have a special unit in the downtown core for such a purpose but he is unaware of any increase in activity during the crackdown. He said they usually respond to requests from police but sometimes their drivers can call in if they see someone they suspect is in real trouble.

I’ll fill in more details when I get them. In the meantime, have a good one.

River Ride

It's a bit long but I think it's worth it.

Old men on bicycles

I haven’t written in yonks! There was this flurry of activity and then things got so hectic that it was impossible to put pen to paper. It’s old men on bicycles. If you want to get in tune with the homeless in Calgary, you got to get on a bike.

Somebody had a brilliant idea. He/she, somebody, got the idea that we could get old bikes, fix them up and let the homeless have a free bike to get around town. What a great idea.

And you can see them all over town, in the morning, afternoon and at night. They are peddling like mad, screaming through traffic with the fear of God in their eyes. Then again, maybe it’s the fear of the traffic. Have you ever tried biking through downtown traffic in rush hour? I didn’t think so. It’s quite the experience – for both the peddalist and the drivers in the cars. Sometimes I don’t know who is the more frightened.

You see, this is the prairies. It’s flat -- real flat. There is a beautiful river park running right through town for miles and miles and bike paths on both sides of the river. It’s mostly flat and great for getting on your bike in the hot summer and getting all over town for free. It also is great for keeping in shape. I’ve lost a ton of weight.

I’m going to try and get down to the bike shop in the drop-in centre this weekend and see what’s up.

Mental illness affects the body as well as the mind. You’re either going like a bat out of hell all the time or you can’t get off the couch. If you’re in between, you’re a lot closer to sanity. Hopping on a bike not only keeps your body in shape, it’s a great way to forget about, or ignore the voices going on in your head -- especially if it’s rush hour.

The plan at the bike shop is pretty fair. You fix a couple of bikes and the third one is yours – free. If anyone is interested, they can learn how to fix bikes and in this town, that’s cash in the bank. It is just about impossible to find a decent bike mechanic. I had to hunt all over town to find mine in a made-over church in Kensington called Lifesport. They have a great young bike mechanic with an incredibly dry and sharp wit. It took forever to find a place that does a decent job on bikes. There are a lot of bike shops in the middle of this on-going boom that simply don’t fix bikes; they don’t have the staff.

I have no idea how many people have managed to hook a job from the drop-in bike shop training ground, but I’d love to find out.

Interview with Kirsten

Kirsten is a remarkable woman. She’s trying to finish off her master’s degree in dance and working three jobs to make ends meet. And making a living as a contemporary dancer in this society is no mean feat.

Her project is to relate in some way to the homeless as a contemporary dancer and choreographer. In order to get better contact with this she worked as a volunteer in the kitchen for the fall and winter last year at the Riverfront Drop-in Center for the homeless.

She’s a young single woman, very pretty and you would think she would be totally intimidated by working with the homeless, but not Kirsten. The woman has incredible courage and is willing to work in this field without question.

One of the big issues she has to wrestle with is the purpose of what she is doing. She is aware of the rescuing syndrome wherein someone in a privileged position hooks into self gratification by helping or rescuing someone they feel is beneath them. It’s a tough call and an issue everyone must deal with when doing this kind of work if they are going to be successful at all. People being so-called “rescued” can smell it a mile away and see through pretentiousness like you were wearing it. Kirsten has gotten through that.

“It’s amazing,” she said after the vid was done, “There’s so much I didn’t talk about. I mean like, there are all these people lining up, and there’s not enough food for them.

“I guess what they’re doing is they have to save some food for the people working night shift and that’s why they have to cut people off.

“But that’s what they do all day long. They walk. Then they come back for lunch, and they have to line up for that. Then they go out walking again because there is no place for them. Then they line up for dinner. They get a handful of corn, a potato and a wiener, and that’s it. That has to sustain them.

“If there’s no place for them, they have to walk to another shelter and line up again. And if there is no place there, they walk to some other shelter and line up again.

“So that’s what they do all day; they walk. They line up, and they walk again. They never get a chance to sleep. I guess they sleep wherever they can, in alleys, in the park, in hallways or corridors. That’s their life.”

“Oh yes,” she continued, “there’s this program for new mothers who are addicted to cocaine. Apparently that’s really big and is working really well. And it’s really needed too. They do have lots and lots of programs but I don’t know what they have for the mentally ill.

“Have you talked to CUPS? I hear they have something but I don’t know what it is. Apparently the hours to get access to them are pretty restricted. I guess it’s pretty restricted everywhere.”

"Oh and another thing I didn't talk about when I'm working there. There's the smell. The awful smell, there's no place for these people to shower or to clean up."

And that’s pretty well what it’s like to be homeless in Calgary. You walk, you line up, you get to eat a little, and you sleep wherever and whenever you can. If you’re mentally ill, even that can be very difficult to manage.

Concerning interview with alderman Madeline King

Interview with Alderman Madeline King

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.

Interview with the Man

A couple of weeks ago I had a chat with Insp. Bob Ritchie. He’s the Calgary Police officer in charge of Division One – the downtown core. It took a little bit to set up the phone interview, but it’s not that hard. The Calgary Police are pretty good about disseminating information, but they’re busy as hell and it takes a little time to get to you – especially if they haven’t a clue what you’re on about.

First thing I wanted to know was if there was a proactive program for homelessness or the mentally ill on the street.

“If it’s a police matter then its reactive policing,” he asserted, “We have no proactive policing. When all other sources become not available, it is a police problem.”

Well, that answers that question. About homelessness:

“It requires a multilayered approach,” he said, “It requires the medical community, judicial, social agencies, politicians and emergency services.

“Policing is a last resort,” he continued, “sometimes a criminal element is present, but not always.

“You see, the homeless are forced into criminal or bylaw issues. The boom is increasing our problems. There’s an increased working poor population.”

(In case you’ve just tuned into the planet, Calgary is sitting on huge reserves of oil and overnight exploded with work and people pouring in from all over the world. This is the biggest boom Calgary has ever seen -- and it’s seen some whoppers in the past.)

“We’re very cognizant of this,” he explained, “We have to maintain good working relationships with the community.”

He mentioned various groups: CUPS, Alpha, DOAP, (Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership), He said they rely heavily on social partnerships and the health care community, which makes sense. I mean, if the police didn’t cooperate with health and emergency services, we’d be totally up the creek without a paddle. He said there are lots of other organizations and apologized for not mentioning all of them. I told him not to worry about it, I can Google them.

One thing of note he mentioned. The judicial system in the past two years has developed a mental health diversion program. It goes like this: if officers in a criminal investigation find themselves in a mental health situation, and under the Mental Health Act, they can actually decide what constitutes a mental health situation; they can refer to the courts to track them instead of it resulting in a criminal conviction. They can refer the matter to a mental health situation, the court steps in and tracks the person arrested, and the person can get some help. It’s a hell of a way to get help, but at least it’s something.

He also mentioned that the police have psychiatrists on staff. He said they don’t go out into the community or anything, but they do have shrinks on staff. That may come in handy.

I was on the National Task Force for Resourcing for the RCMP for a number of years and we had to mathematically model, in considerable detail, the way policing works. I can tell you in no uncertain terms, that if you’re just into reactive policing with no proactive plans in place, you are playing catch-up ball. It’s a loser’s game. If you start winning, they move the goalposts and you have to work twice as hard just to stay even.

So there you have it. We’re putting out fires like crazy and it can only get worse. Time to head over to the library and check out some numbers. Just how big is this problem anyway?

Sitting in a coffeeshop

It was a hot day yesterday in downtown Calgary. It ended with a massive thunder and hail storm that shut down the city. But in the afternoon it was a hot summer day in the swelter of Seventh Avenue.
The police were out in force patrolling the street. Five of them conferred on the corner of Seventh and Centre. They busted an old man on a bicycle. That’s important. We’ll get back to old men on bicycles peddling downtown. Then they busted a couple of girls, each in their twenties. They searched them, let one go and ticketed the other. Then they split up.
A couple of the cops came into the coffee shop. They were very hot and sweating. The tall blonde one took off his hat at the counter and you could tell he was suffering from the heat. He got his coffee; it looked like a latte, and came over to the table next to me and sat down, waiting for his partner.
“You look a little hot,” I said to him.
He chuckled. He had a good clean kind of smile, one that took up most of his face.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“It must be rough in those black uniforms. Maybe they should put you guys in shorts,” I said.
“Hah, I don’t think that’ll happen, but it’s a good idea,” he said.
“How long have you been doing the downtown beat?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve been on the beat for about five years now,” he said. “I’ve been doing downtown for around a year now.”
“It must have been tough last winter,” I said. “There looked like a lot of people on the street in the cold. Some of them didn’t make it.”
The smile left his face. “It was hard,” he said, “You see, when it comes to the homeless, we deal with three different groups of people. We deal with those with mental problems (he shrugged) and we can’t do anything for them. We deal with the working poor and we deal with those who have severe addictions.
“The working poor aren’t that much of a problem,” he continued, “I mean; you’re not gong to find one of them in a doorway smoking crack.
“But the addicts … what Calgarians don’t know,” he said, stabbing the air with his finger for emphasis, “is that their habit costs $200 a day. They have to get that money. They break into cars. They break into people’s homes. They’ll do anything to get that money.”
He took a sip on his coffee. He made sense. He made perfect sense. Social scientists say the homeless are all mentally ill. Others say people are homeless because of a lack of affordable housing. But here we have a cop on the beat for a year, who brings a lot of light to a dark and confused issue.
He says there are three groups. We don’t know how many are in each group mind you, but at least we have clear lines of demarcation. There are those with mental problems, who we ignore; those who work hard, but are poor; and the addicts, who we keep busting.
So, for the working poor, there is obviously no affordable housing. Those with mental problems, there is no hope, and for the druggies, they’re on the street from a very bad choice made some time ago.
The cop put down his mug and was joined by his partner. They talked shop for a bit.
During a lull, I asked, “Do you think someone would be mentally ill after sucking on a crack pipe for a couple of years?”
The same cop thought a moment, “I don’t know,” he said, “Most of them are pretty lucid. They’re pretty intelligent. They’re smart. The way they talk, they don’t seem mentally ill, but I don’t know …
“The military uses sleep deprivation to torture people,” he went on, “Lack of sleep is a form of torture. These guys go on a binge for two or three days and you can tell it really takes it out of them physically.”
He flashed another one of his smiles. It seemed to be hiding a world of experiences.
The two got up and put on their hats once again. Coffee break’s over, back to work. We said goodbye.