'At Home' and thriving, for now, but support for homeless study ends soon (with video)
Part 1 of a series:
Innovative research project that provides homes and support service to the
homeless is praised for saving lives and money, but participants may be left
scrambling when it ends
By Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun November 24, 2012
Melanie Connors asks the toddler to identify a
train, a clown, an elephant on the pages of the classic children’s book about
overcoming adversity through optimism and hard work.
Elim, Connors says,
is her whole world. He is the only one of her five children who has not been
seized by child protection workers.
The odds were against
Connors keeping this baby, too. When she found out she was pregnant, she was a
homeless woman with bipolar disorder and an addiction to heroin and crack.
Today Connors, 36, is
taking medication for her mental illness, and is living drug-free in a
two-bedroom townhouse in Burnaby where, with support, she is raising her son.
The radical shift in
her life she attributes to one thing: being accepted as a participant into the
cutting-edge, $110-million At Home/Chez Soi study.
The project challenges traditional views that a
person should be sober and mentally stable before moving into an independent
home. The At Home researchers are examining whether chronically homeless people
with serious mental illnesses will stabilize if they are given a house first,
and then support services such as drug counselling, health care and access to
psychiatrists.
“When I got that apartment it changed everything. I
got out of the (Downtown Eastside), so I was in a nice area. I had furniture. I
had a home for the first time in, well, years,” Connors said during an
emotional interview.
“Because of that I managed to stay clean my whole
pregnancy and I got to keep my child. And I really don’t think that would have
ever happened, you know? I wouldn’t have him now if it wasn’t for the At Home
project.”
Early results
promising
Between October 2009 and the spring of 2011, the
$30-million Vancouver arm of the national At Home study scooped up 300 people
from the streets and gave them a home with support from outreach workers.
The first round of
academic data indicates the majority of participants committed fewer crimes,
visited St. Paul’s emergency room less often, became stable neighbours, and
reported an improved quality of life.
Early results from the national study argue this
housing-first solution for complex, hard-to-house, mentally ill people can even
save taxpayers money in the long run.
But at the moment this
research project is only that: a research project. And while most of the
participants have shown signs of significant improvement, they remain guinea
pigs because the federal money for their rent and support services ends in
March 2013.
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