15 Things We Should All Want for 2015
In keeping with annual tradition, this is the blog that outlines what we should aspire to in 2015 if we are serious about ending homelessness:
1. Giant leaps forward.
Audacious stretch goals move us from the inertia of the status quo to a new (uncomfortable) place of the unfamiliar but awesome. Let’s make 2015 the year of everyone taking one giant leap forward out of her/his comfort zone – whether that is a conscious individual choice or as part of a broader movement (Zero 2016 in the US, 20,000 Homes in Canada, etc.)
2. Less band-aids and more solutions.
Let’s rally together every well-intentioned college class, church group and service club and get them to stop handing out sandwiches, coffee and blankets and devote the same energy to building housing and advocating for policy changes that would increase benefit levels and promote sustainable food security.
3. Imperfect action.
Less talk, more rock. Imperfect action trumps perfect planning. Get out there and do something different. Do it remarkably imperfectly. Learn. Adjust. Grow. Repeat.
4. A few more housing discussions.
I want a few more discussions about ending homelessness to be accompanied by the “and this is how we are going to increase housing options” discussion. There are more than just chronically homeless people that need housing. Trickle down economics are remarkably ineffective when it comes to housing.
5. An end to mythology.
Stories are seared into the consciousness of the masses. We tell stories about homelessness. We recount stories of how homeless persons became housed persons. But we need to start using data and evidence more and individual stories as pillars of success less. We need to tell the truth of what usually happens, not shine a spotlight on the anomaly that simply tells people the story we want to tell rather than the overall truth.
6. Fewer nice but stupid people.
Let’s take the goodwill of people with time and compassion and educate them so that they make positive, enduring impacts on the lives of homeless persons – not just perpetuating a cycle of well-intentioned, but ineffective energy. Charity will not sustain us nor will it end a complex social issue – it can’t.
7. Greater investment in professionalizing services.
I want a few more communities to grow a set and divert money away from direct service and put it into professionalizing its frontline staff. You can talk a good game about ending homelessness all you want. If you don’t teach people how to do it, it is wasted air. And wasted effort.
8. More organizations in communities working together instead of tearing each other apart.
Give me alliances for collective action that commit to work together to achieve a new reality. And for those who refuse to come along – paraphrasing the immortal words from Frozen – let them go. No point keeping around a “partner” just to spar with them.
9. An understanding of the difference between acuity and being chronically homeless.
Most definitions of chronic homelessness miss the point of acuity. Let us look at the depth and complexity of needs as it relates to housing stability. Let us stop looking solely at length of time homeless and presence of disabling condition, which could be an indication of nothing more than an ineffective service delivery system or woefully out of date programs and approaches that incentivize homelessness.
10. Stop clinging to the past.
Unless someone has invented a time machine that the rest of us don’t know about, we would be well served to leave the past in the past. We can learn from the past. We cannot yearn for the past.
11. An end to investment in stuff that doesn’t work.
When demand exceeds supply of supports and housing can I look any homeless person in the eye and say, “I cannot serve you because our community is giving money to another program that doesn’t work.” Probably not. If your community does not collectively put a stop to investing in stuff that doesn’t work you are essentially condoning the deaths of homeless people.
12. Leadership skill development.
We need to build leaders. I wish I could convene 75-100 of the most emerging leaders on homelessness and housing together for three days and rock their universe with knowledge, strategies, techniques and supports unlike what they will experience at any other time in their life. Then send them back to their communities to pollinate the bloom of other blossoming leaders.
13. Better knowledge on how people do after they are housed.
Take the guesswork out of it. Start reporting on outcomes (what happens after people are housed) and less on outputs (how many people are housed). If you don’t have a quality of life self-report tool we can give you one. If your assessment tool doesn’t have this capability, start using the SPDAT.
14. A grown-up conversation about taxes.
Maybe this will be the year people realize you cannot get better services while paying less taxes. I want to pay more taxes if it means more housing and less homelessness. The wealth exists around us to fund the solution to most social problems if we tax for it. Instead, we will have less than we need and rely on individual donors and corporate philanthropy.
15. Less unnecessary competition.
The best service providers should be rewarded with funds. The best communities should be rewarded with funds. And I appreciate the only way to determine what is “best” is through competition. But it seems that almost everything has become a competition from who can end veteran’s homelessness first (I have met many veteran’s still homeless in Phoenix by the way) to which communities can do the best application for more supports. Maybe it is time for more cooperation and less competition if we want to bring all performers to a new standard.
Thanks
This is the last blog of 2014. Next week I will be taking a little R&R.
Thanks for making 2014 such a memorable one for all of us at OrgCode. Some highlights and memorable moments on our end:
I took over 100% ownership of OrgCode at the end of the first quarter
White House visit in July thanks to our rewarding work with Community Solutions
SPDAT and VI-SPDAT changing the landscape of assessment in the United States and Canada and Australia
Seeing complete states tackle coordinated access and common assessment effectively, keeping the people to be served at the centre of the discussion and planning
The Alliance conferences in New Orleans and DC
The 100K Homes Campaign reaching its goal
Gwen departing OrgCode; Kieran departing OrgCode; Jeff joining OrgCode
Popularity of training other than SPDAT: Excellence in Housing-Based Case Management, Assertive Engagement, Diversion, and Promoting Wellness & Recovery in particular
Completion of a half dozen community affordable housing plans
Reaching places we had never been before and making new meaningful connections professionally and personally
Maintaining top tier frequent flier status (like that was ever in doubt)
Surpassing 1,000 Likes on FaceBook
Klout status
Having so many people subscribe to the blog, and the popularity of a few select posts in particular
Board retreats and leadership development assignments with a half dozen organizations
Assisting with Executive searches and transitions for a handful of organizations
The fantastic OrgCode team of professionals that are my motivators and friends and the engine that keeps what we do humming along
Feeling that the work we do is making a difference, even when it most often means spending 5 or 6 days a week away from home
Keep an eye out for the first blog in 2015 which is all about things I hope happen in 2015!
The Best Should Not Always be Promoted
If someone has survived on the frontlines for long enough we promote them. Sometimes that may be warranted, but there is an impact of this decision that needs a closer look if we are serious about ending homelessness.
If you are working with families or individuals with multiple areas in life with higher acuity, they will benefit from having a well-educated, experienced professional to provide the skills in supports necessary to help them succeed. If these supports are behind a desk and a new-ish or less experienced practitioner is providing the supports, the benefit of experience can be lost. Think of it this way – if you were sick with a number of illnesses co-occurring, would you want the specialist that has seen that type of issue and worked through it successfully many, many times before, or would you want the person that recently graduated and while they may have some new methods and techniques do not have as much experience?
If you are working at implementing a new program in your community – say a rapid re-housing program for singles – it can be advantageous to have people with years of experience to put service delivery into context. They may have perspective in weathering the ups and downs in new program roll-out. They may also be more versed in metrics and monitoring. Think of it this way – if you were to head out on an adventure, wouldn’t it be best to have someone that knows how to navigate even if they have never been to that specific destination before?
I suspect your community has been working on rolling out coordinated entry and common assessment of some sort. If we want practitioners with experience to solve problems and provide helpful solutions on how to ensure this works to the benefit of service users, having some of the best frontline staff around the table goes a long way. Think of a time before Google when you may have had to call the operator for information – did you want the operator that had many years of connecting people to information, or the operator new on the job?
Is there a place for new blood? Yes.
Is there a place for fresh perspectives? Yes.
Is there benefit in having some people not entrenched in a particular way of doing things to be involved? Yes.
All of those are positives.
The point is to not automatically take the most skilled people in your organization and put them all into supervisory or managerial or executive positions. For the benefit of the people we aim to serve – and for transference of knowledge and skills to lesser experience persons – we cannot underestimate the value of having highly skilled professionals with experience to lead the charge and educate others along the way. Or think of it this way – if you were building a championship sports team would you want all rookies or would you like to have some seasoned veterans who have experience being successful?
Depression and the Christmas Holiday Season
This week’s blog is a public service message about depression and the Christmas holiday season. I do not hide the fact that I live with depression. I want to educate people. I have learned to share. I think all stigma of mental illness should be taken out of the shadows and put into the light.
Depression sucks on the best of days even when you have a strong support network and a strong focus on recovery in your life. It sucks worse during the holidays. Let me explain to those of you that do not live with depression 9 things that are especially difficult for people living with depression during the Christmas holiday season so you know what is going on inside the person in your life that lives with depression. You can use these insights over the holidays to better support people in your life that live with depression.
There is a societal pressure to be holly and jolly.
If I could force myself to be holly and jolly I would every single day of my life. I don’t have that switch. While every Christmas celebrator seems to find their happiness overdrive this time of year, the person with depression may feel even worse that they do not have such an ability. Ask the person in your life with depression to participate in things like tree trimming and caroling and gatherings, but don’t assume that just because they choose to participate that they will suddenly be happy and “in the holiday spirit”.
There will be parties. Lots of them.
If you are an introvert and live with depression this is akin to French kissing an electrical socket if you are forced to go on a day that you are quite down. If you go, and you are having a down day, people will ask why you are down – even if they know you have depression. (“C’mon, man, it’s a party! Lighten up a little!”) If you don’t go, people will think you have no holiday cheer. On days when my depression is in check I can handle parties. On days when I am not in a good place, I avoid them at all costs. But you can’t win – people will hold it against you if you show up and seem down; they will hold it against you if you were invited and don’t show up. So maybe ask the person with depression if they feel up to going to the party and don’t hold it against them if they say no. Also, just because the person with depression doesn’t want to go doesn’t mean they do not want you to go. Do so, guilt free, when they tell you it is okay. And one more tip – under no circumstances if you live with someone with depression should you plan on hosting a large party. They will want to hide all night.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t buy your way out of depression.
I am not the only person I know with depression that has tried to overcome the guilt of being depressed during the holidays with buying more gifts for people. It’s kind of like “I bought you nice things so you will not make demands of me when I am down during the holidays”. But what happens is that you make no one happy and are broke. I have also had the experience of feeling more down because I have tried to find theperfect gift for someone that has supported me the rest of the year through my depression. Because I suck at buying presents, this has, historically, made me feel much worse. The best thing that ever happened to me is learning to ask the people I care about what they actually want for Christmas and then buying one of those things. Maybe give the person with depression an out like, “I know I can be difficult to buy for and that may be a lot of pressure on you. Would it help if I gave you a list of ideas?”
Then there is the whole Grinch thing.
If you are not the life of the party or heck even if you are not halfway happy at work when it is close to the holidays someone will say something like “What made you the Grinch?” There are few times in life when an actual throat-punch is warranted. This is one of them. Or spit in their egg-nog while you crotch kick them. Okay, so that is probably not going to fly. Like any day living with depression, I have come to accept that some people will choose not to hang out with me when I am down. While it may be more magnified during the holidays, we have to accept that it may happen then too. To support the person in your life with depression that may be accused of being the Grinch, ask them from time to time, “How is your depression with the holidays coming?” I can think of nothing more thoughtful to be asked by people that love me.
Presents.
Ugh. Generally speaking I am terrible at receiving presents. Many days I feel like I don’t deserve them. On some birthdays they have reminded me I am alive another year – which you think should make me happy, but sometimes has had the opposite impact. On Christmas, I could walk downstairs, see what Santa has brought, it could be the exact thing I have wanted for a LONG time, and I still don’t have the “I am going to do cartwheels through a meadow of mistletoe” reaction that people were hoping I would have. I may love it but have no clue how to show it. Take people at their word. If someone tells you they love it, even if their body language doesn’t seem to show it, believe them. Or another strategy could be to wait until later in the day or the next day and do a little check in, “Hey, it’s cool with me that you didn’t smile ear to ear when you got the present from me. I just want to make sure you actually like it.”
“You have ruined Christmas.”
Thankfully most of the people that have said this statement to me in past years are no longer in my life. When already feeling low and being unable to cheer one’s self up, being blatantly told that YOU are the reason why Christmas sucks doesn’t trigger a “snap out of it” response. It just makes things worse. Christmas not only brings joy for people, it brings stress. The person that seems the most down can become the scapegoat. Be sensitive to that. And never, ever, ever tell someone with depression they have ruined Christmas unless you are trying to convince them to end their life.
“Everyone’s here. Can’t you try to be happy for just an hour or two? Or would it kill you to smile just once for your grandparents?”
So many of us go through the annual ritual of hanging out with family that we see at no other time of the year other than Christmas. At some points in my life I have more or less been asked to hide my depression for the sake of family. If happiness or a smile is not genuinely there, trying to get someone in the throws of depression to force this to happen is about as likely as you licking your own elbow. Let people with depression be in whatever mood they are in.
Writing out Christmas cards can be a very trying task
However, there have been two great inventions in the history of humankind that have made Christmas cards easier for people with depression. The first is electronic cards. The second are photo cards from the likes of Costco where you can plaster your offspring wearing cute matching outfits whilst on Santa’s lap at the mall. Why are these inventions so great? Neither requires trying to force yourself to say cheery things on the inside of the card. Like me, you may actually love reaching out to people near and far with Christmas cards. But the pressure of getting them out the door when you have to write holly jolly things can be too much to handle. Go the route of the electronic cards or photo cards. Trust me. Or if there is someone in your household that does not have depression, share the duties of writing cards allowing some to be just for signature and other ones for writing inside. If you start LONG before Christmas there will likely be a number of good days where the person with depression is able and interested in writing in some of them, without time pressure.
Alcohol seems to flow very freely in the holiday season.
It is in abundance at gatherings. Even your own house may be stocked up more than other times of the year with beer, wine, special liquors and other spirits. In the pit of deep depression, alcohol can seem like a magical elixir. It can get the depressed person through many social situations of the holiday season but makes matters worse in the long run, not better. This doesn’t mean everyone that deals with depression has an addiction to alcohol, but it should be acknowledged that many people living with depression turn to alcohol to cope. Being sensitive to choices of sobriety is critical, as is ensuring that alcohol isn’t the primary focus of engagement at the party. And if you have someone who is feeling really blue around the holidays in your house, you may want to think of making sure that there isn’t alcohol readily available in your own home.
So there you have it, from a person who lives with depression, on how you can be really supportive of people with depression during the holiday season. Perhaps putting some of these into practice will be the gift that person has always been waiting for.
Greater Gifts
As you read this, non-profit organizations – especially homeless service providers – are busy collecting money from people and organizations that like to give in this season. This “season” is the period between (American) Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is no doubt that the general populace likes to give at this time of year to homelessness related causes. I suspect if you have been to a mall or thriving downtown or near a large public transportation hub you have heard the chime of bells and seen the red kettle or had a service organization knock on your door or read or seen a news report.
Give, if you like, your money.
But know that your charitable donation is not going to solve the issues that caused homelessness in the first place. It will, however, give someone a meal or a bed or access to a shower – all of which are necessary things. Giving away some of your money will probably make you feel pretty good too. However, that same person that benefited from your donation today is likely to need a meal, bed and/or shower the day after and the day after that and the day after that. And should they disappear, someone else will eat their meal, sleep in that bed or need a shower.
Charity begets more charity. It is a band-aid. It is an immediate and short-term approach to dealing with need. There will always be a place for charity, but needs will grow and more will be needed. Why? Because we are not getting to the root of the issue.
I respectfully challenge you or your friends and family to try different things this year:
Start an advocacy campaign with your elected officials. Write letters. Lots of them. Send emails. Weekly. Visit them in their offices. Do not accept the prepared responses and double-speak. They represent you and make decisions on your tax dollars. Demand they listen to you and the group you represent. You are not a special interest group. You are reality.
Educate yourselves. Ask a non-profit to come to your office and educate you and colleagues on the issue. This isn’t a fundraising pitch. This is an education opportunity. People don’t know what they don’t know. If you are on the other side of the coin – working in a non-profit – offer to do “lunch and learns” in the new year to educate people on the issues and don’t ask for a cent when you are done. It changes the paradigm and historical type of relationships that non-profits have had with for-profit companies.
Suggest to anyone that will listen that you want your taxes to go up. Just a little. What? We can’t get better services at less cost. There are no more efficiencies to be found. If your taxes went up to increase the amount of housing, or the availability of case management supports, or improved government benefit rates – would that be a bad thing?
Do something awesome and unexpected not for the people that use the services at the non-profit, but the staff that support them day in and day out. They do incredible work in conditions that are rarely understood by people not immersed in it daily. They are underpaid. They are over worked. Give the staff and incredible meal or a night out or even comfortable insoles because they are on their feet all day. “Help us practice self-care” sounds like a legitimate holiday fundraising campaign to me.
Re-think the “Turkey Drive”. Many communities have this down to a science now, ensuring that low-income families receive a turkey and the fixings to go with it to prepare at home, and that homeless individuals and families receiving turkey on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas day. This is good media. It is a “feel good” story. I suspect they will even interview a person or two glowing with thanks for the generosity of the donors. And for what? Imagine if the same energy that went into the turkey drive was applied to another single-moment event like combating NIMBY at a City Council meeting related to an affordable housing development. Or imagine if the same energy was spread out over a long period of time to support a Permanent Supportive Housing campaign or something similar to that? Imagine the long-term benefits to the kids of the families volunteering when they learn that social change comes from a prolonged strategy and effort to combat injustice, not a single day of turkeys.
There are skills and resources and excellent ideas in the general population. Charitable giving has become the default. I would assert that we can do more and better – that there are greater gifts to give than money.
White Privilege & Housing and Homelessness
Last week I was in St. Louis. The tension was palpable. It was a community on edge, awaiting the grand jury decision regarding Officer Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. This week, with the decision in Ferguson making world headlines, the result has been many talking about reforms, righting injustices, addressing inequities, making adjustments in society so that complex social issues that involve race are considered differently.
Legacies of injustice continue. In the United States it is the painful history of slavery and the treatment of African-Americans and maltreatment of Native Americans too. (A “civilized” nation that celebrates Columbus Day?) In Canada and Australia it is the painful history of colonization of indigenous peoples and failed, unjust attempts at assimilation through the likes of residential schools. (In Canada there is still something called the Indian Act – legislation that governs engagement between the state and what is allowed for a group of people, to put it over-simply).
If you are not white, you are disproportionately going to be represented in a homeless population in the United States, Canada and Australia. This isn’t a coincidence.
If you are not white, you are less likely to be a homeowner. You are less likely to have financial assistance from family to purchase into the homeownership market. If you are not white you are less likely to meet financial risk assessment thresholds to purchase a home. If you are not white and you do own a home, the value of your home is, on average, less than that of a white person. This isn’t a coincidence.
If you are not white, you will be incarcerated at a disproportionately higher rate. The biggest investment made in housing is the “big house”. This is not a coincidence.
If you are not white, you are less likely to get appropriate mental health assistance or assistance with a substance use disorder. This is not a coincidence.
If you are not white, you are more likely to make less money than white counterparts, unless you are working in a unionized environment. If you are not white, you are more likely to not be in a management position. This is not a coincidence.
If you are not white, you are less likely to finish high school and less likely to complete a post high school degree. This is not a coincidence.
Did I – a white, educated, straight, male – make more not white people homeless or decrease their homeownership rates or incarcerate people in a disproportionate manner, deprive others of mental health assistance or substance use recovery, pay an unequal wage or decrease educational attainment of people that are not white? No. But that doesn’t mean I am not part of the problem.
If I want to be part of the solution, I have to acknowledge that I am definitely part of the problem. Try as I might, my white privilege makes it impossible for me to truly empathize beyond a cerebral exercise in our current society because the likelihood of success is stacked heavily in my favor. I didn’t ask for any of this. It is a privilege bestowed upon me solely by being white, and I will never know what it is like to be not white. Do I give up in trying to understand wholeheartedly? No.
I need an education different than what multiple university degrees have provided me. I need to ensure that all I do is rooted firmly in the tenets of justice, and not one of pity or sympathy or charity. I need to speak truth to power and talk about the thing that others sometimes don’t want to talk about, beyond just “Have you noticed that most of the people in your shelter are African-American?” (or aboriginal) to “What are we going to do about the disproportionate number of African-American (or aboriginal) people needing housing?”
When I have half-heartedly attempted these discussions in the past it is usually met with responses like, “It took generations to get to the point where things are this bad, and it is going to take generations to get out of this situation.” Or, “I know bad things happened in the past. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t my fault. When are they going to get over it?” Or, “The problem is that they don’t have fathers in their life or role models to set them straight on how to make a living and take care of themselves.” Or, “I almost feel better for them when they are incarcerated, because at least then you know they are getting fed and access to health care.” Or, “You know it’s because they really can’t handle alcohol.” Or, “They’ve never had an apartment because of how their people are. We are just setting them up for failure.” Or, “Of course there are more of them homeless” – as if all of these statements normalize reality so that no action can be taken – and are accepted on face value as truths.
I will take these inflammatory comments head on from now on in all situations.
See, these aren’t African-American problems. They are American problems. These aren’t Native Canadian problems. They are Canadian problems. These aren’t Indigenous Australian problems. They are Australian problems. It isn’t someone else’s problem. It is our collective problem.
I am not against discussion, but we aren’t going to talk our way out of this. I am not against education, but we aren’t going to train our way out of this. What I am for is action.
I have said many times that it is pointless to gather race or ethnic data if you aren’t going to do anything with it – if it is just an academic exercise or to gather descriptive data then it is pointless. Maybe it is time that we find the point and act on the point.
Economic injustice and racism are siblings…perhaps even twins. I am opposed to anti-poverty strategies. I am all for increased wealth strategies. I will not pity people for their poverty. I will not advocate just to increase benefit rates. I will rally against why it exists in the first place.
I will work to reform any system that calls itself a “justice system” when it systemically removes people’s access to employment and housing, and does so in many instances for a lifetime. If we can’t agree that time served is, um, time served – then maybe we need to start calling it the racially unjust punishment system.
I will advocate that we intentionally work to decrease stigma of mental illness and substance addiction with people of color. I will no longer accept the narrative of “it’s cultural” thrown around by white people in avoiding getting people the assistance they deserve.
And one more thing.
I will never vote for the candidate wanting to lower my taxes. Why? Because this is the manifestation of white privilege at its finest. We can’t have less money in the coffers of government and expect more or better interventions to address these systemic and systematic issues. Lowering taxes will not decrease homelessness. Lowering taxes will not increase available housing. Lowering taxes will not result in better education. Lowering taxes will not improve human services. A vote for the candidate wanting to lower taxes – who will give you the mantra of better service at less cost or efficiencies as propaganda – is a vote for ongoing injustice, more racial inequity, and more white privilege.