Affordable housing issue finds a messenger (or two or three)

The Daily News devoted a portion of Friday's paper to examining the increasingly worrisome issue of affordable housing for those in the most need in the community,

Single men seem to be the ones falling through the cracks of the system, such as it is and they found George T. Baker ready to tell their stories in the local paper.
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Baker examines the issue from a number of viewpoints, from the front lines of the street with local outreach worker Myles Moreau (who recently had funding eliminated for his work), Captain Gary Sheils of the Salvation Army, who like Moreau struggles to lend aid in troubled times.

The article also featured some background from Michael Curnes, the city's director of Recreations and services who has been tasked with the homeless shelter issue, and Lothar Shiese, who struggles from day to day to keep his accommodations and finding a way to get through to the end of the day.
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Shiese's name may ring a few bells from the last municipal election in 2005, when he ran as a candidate for city council.

The article outlines the many troubles that are faced by local residents and how the much heralded port development and the anticipated boom hasn't quite resonated in their lives very much just yet.

It portrays a troubled part of our society that seems to keep getting put on the back burner, shuffled off further and further from view and with little sense of hope that the situation will change in the short term.

Need for shelter really hits home
During Homelessness Action Week, call made for progress on shelter
By George T. Baker
The Daily News
Friday, October 17, 2008
Pages one and three

For many in Prince Rupert, there is no home. There are dilapidated buildings that the fire department wouldn't enter even if they were burning structures or the RCMP would not go in unless it's an absolute must. There are places with hallways filled with the smell of marijuana or with noise from the bar downstairs; where broken windows is the norm; where a nice clean living environment is not. But these are not homes.

Defining homelessness has been difficult over the years in Prince Rupert because it hasn't been as easy to identify the issues, as it is in Vancouver's black hole of hope that is its downtown eastside. There aren't doorways after doorways filled with hungry people sleeping their nights away for all to see.

Instead, men and women who have no home are sleeping on couches at friends' homes, living off the charity of others and shacked up in degraded hotels. It's not ideal.

Not by a longshot. And not home.

June 2006 Lothar Shiese was the last person living in Harbourview Apartments on Seal Cove road before a complete overhaul of the complex began. At the time, he had a two-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen, a large living room and he was paying $430 per month, which included heat, and $30 per month for hydro with help from welfare.

By October of that year, Shiese was living in one of those degraded hotels, where he can't cook in his own room, and has to deal with noise from traffic, drug trafficking and drinkers.
And he pays $428 a month for that luxury.

Because he only receives $375 a month from the government for living allowance, Shiese has to scratch up the rest through help and disability cheques. He's on welfare because Shiese suffers from Aspergers syndrome and the effects of an old mining accident that prevents him from working a full time job. It's not ideal.

"It's pretty bad here," said Shiese of his living conditions. He says he doesn't like to confront the drug dealers and users, or the prostitution that goes on around him but over time he has made his neighbours realize that their behaviour is unacceptable.

"They are not being human beings. They allow their minds to direct themselves to cause havoc for themselves and the people who live around them and the employees," said Shiese.

His room is filled with all sorts of trinkets and oddities that most grown men would not own. A boxed up Superman hangs on a wall as does a master lock in an unopened package and a stuffed green frog in a ballerina costume. Shiese says its all from the stuff he's found rummaging in bins around town and some of the finds you would not believe, like the blue recycling box from Burnaby. Or the pair of grapefruits, clean enough to eat.

Actually, there are many boxes in Shiese's room, so many that both his bed and bathtub are covered in boxes with all sorts of stuff people don't want - a feeling that Shiese ascribes for himself.

On his wall hangs a notice where he has written "I'm pleased to say that I'm error free for nearly a week." Which is an accomplishment for someone with aspergers.

Those who live with it demonstrate a failure to react appropriately to social interaction and may appear to disregard other people's feelings, and may come across as insensitive.

Over his life, aspergers has affected Shiese's capacity to stay employed, his ability to find a landlord, and his socializing with others - or as he calls them "normals". The condition stops him from taking part in several aspects of life that a man of 56 years might take part in. It's because of this disorder he says he has alienated many people around town who have offered him help. It's one of the reasons he is where he is.

But there are many reasons why people end up without a home in Rupert.

FASD is estimated to be one of the crucial problems facing those who are without a home. It is not known how prevalent FASD is in Prince Rupert. There is no known level of FASD prevalence in the world, mainly because a lot of it goes unrecorded. The condition stems from alcohol use by a mother during pregnancy and either parents don't know about it or they do don't want to admit it. But it is speculated that FASD is one of the leading causes of homelessness in town.

In 2007, a North Coast Community Assets shelter feasibility report estimated that FASD in Prince Rupert might be more than two-to-three times the provincial average. If that is the case, then perhaps it is easy to see why so many people in Prince Rupert cannot find a way put of the hard-to-house moniker.

People like 'Conrad', who doesn't want readers to know his real name because he is a well-known panhandler in Prince Rupert. Fifteen years ago he could not have envisioned this to be the case. Back then, he was a worker in the forestry industry on the Haida Gwaii and living in Old Masset.
"The money was good in those days - the money was money," said Conrad as the wind blew hard and long in to his wrinkled face.

On Saturday, Conrad, like many others, paid a visit to Friendship House for their turkey and cranberry. Generous portions were flopping on plates and dropping into empty bellies and the mood was cheery but soon his meal was done and Conrad was back on the street, back to degradation - back to begging for change.

"This city is dead ... or it's dying," said Conrad, who stood by the corner of Sixth Street and Third Avenue West looking for spare change so that he could buy a drink and a cigarette.
"Panhandling is the only real job a person can get in this city," he added.

On Monday, the first sitting for the Salvation Army's Thanksgiving dinner is served at noon to a full room. Approximately 120 tired, weary faces, young and old, First Nations and White, women and men, all sat waiting patiently for a hot serving of ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans and small slice of pumpkin pie.

Conrad was there and so was Shiese, standing in the line-up. Conrad said that he had finished a bottle of 74 the night before and was hoping to get through Monday without drinking another sip. The likelihood of that was evident in his hands, which were shaking uncontrollably.

If a low cost hotel is not suitable to a person in need there are few other options available. For single men in B.C., it is particularly difficult to find needed help because B.C. Housing, the ministry whose responsibility it is to house the hard-to-house, does not accept applications for housing from single men. Men like Shiese and Conrad would not be given the type of assistance that would help them get inside for the long term. That shortage in help is why people including Michael Curnes, Myles Moreau and Captain Gary Shiels of the Salvation Army are pushing hard for a shelter to be opened in Prince Rupert.

"[A low cost hotel] is one step off the street and that motel has so many challenges that it is not a safe place to put somebody who is already at risk," said Curnes, the city's director of Recreations and services.

Curnes was formerly the executive director of North Coast Community Assets, and published the feasibility study talking about one of those low cost hotels where people are being sheltered.
Currently there isn't much choice. And so Shiels has set up a 10-bed temporary bed program, for those in emergency need, in Raffles. He says they house 200 to 250 people a year through the program.

"I believe that alcohol, and as an extension FASD, is at the core of every social issue we face as a community in Prince Rupert," said Curnes,

Moreau has been dealing with the city's homeless since 1989 and he has seen the city's fortunes ebb-and-flow during that period. He estimates there between 80 and 100 adults living on the street and he says some are there because of the hype around the Port of Prince Rupert's growth that has shrouded how much our community is hurting.

"I think local leadership keeps saying there is a boom coming and people are hearing that and moving to town. Those people who thought the boom was happening bought into it and are now some of the people in the soup kitchen line-ups," said Moreau.

Moreau isn't against the growth of the port or the promotion of it but he fears that the port's expansion has raised expectations too high and that those who are suffering are holding on.
"The thing is, if we are going to grow, we have to deal with the social issues first."

Shiels agrees with Moreau that local leadership needs to reconsider the port as a panacea for the community's economic needs.

"There is no doubt this town will rebound - it will - but who knows how long that will be?"
Shiese agrees too.

"Because of the hype surrounding the Port of Prince Rupert and all the property speculation, it has driven up the price of buying or renting a home," said Shiese.
The feasibility study completed by North Coast Community Assets in 2007 is still meant to be 'stage two' of the city's work to get a new shelter in town. The next step, which many in town hope takes off, will be the breaking of ground on a new shelter.

However, as the city waits for that to happen many more will have to take shelter in less than ideal circumstances.