Pubdate: Tue, 01 May 2007 Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC) Copyright: 2007, BC Newspaper Group Contact: http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/948 Author: Katharine Gow NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS TO HOMELESSNESS To the Editor, It was very disheartening to read Dan Ford's recent letter (Giving homes to homeless sends the wrong message, April 24) regarding the homelessness issue. After working with people with addiction and mental health issues for the past 25 years, I know that these issues are complex ones, and that if there were simple solutions as Mr. Ford suggests, I am sure that we would have rectified these problems by now. Certainly it is correct that some homeless people have alcohol or drug problems. There is also a significant percentage of homeless people who suffer from severe and pernicious mental health disorders. I know that at our local emergency shelter, homeless people come in looking for shelter who have neither of the above, but who have fallen on hard times, and lost their place to live. This sometimes includes seniors who cannot afford to live on small pensions. It is also true that sometimes people with alcohol or drug problems steal or beg to obtain money. But some people with these problems have jobs and/or families that provide them with money. For a certain percentage of women with severe drug problems, they make their money by providing prostitution services to a certain male clientele in Nanaimo. I agree that having meaningful work is important in providing a feeling of pride of accomplishment. As for finding a job, when someone comes through detox who has been dealing with a chronic addiction problem for several years, it is difficult for them to find a job right away. If they are on social assistance, their main concern, initially, will be to find a place to live and enough to eat. The lack of safe, affordable housing in our community is a huge problem. Before people can work on finding jobs, or upgrading their education, their basic needs of food and shelter must be met. They need the opportunity to work on their addiction and related issues. The odds for recovery maintenance would be greatly enhanced if our clients had supportive housing, where they could have some time and some support to start putting their lives back together again, with one of the goals being to get a job or go back to school. Unfortunately, there is serious lack of supportive housing in our community for this purpose, so the vicious cycle continues. KATHARINE GOW Clearview Detox Centre - --- MAP posted-by: Steve Heath