Transition Society to receive government grant to help the homeless

The North Coast Transition Society is the recipient of a 45,000 dollar grant that will fund the services of an outreach worker over the next three years. A much needed advocate in the community for those that are struggling to get by in our city.

The duties of the outreach worker will be to help people who are homeless to gain the services they need, breaking a cycle of poverty and moving them towards more permanent and supportive housing.

While it’s a step in the right direction, we would hope that a larger plan is in place to assist those that need assistance. With unemployment high in the Prince Rupert area and Social Assistance cut backs leaving a number of people falling behind the cracks, there is an obvious need for someone to be the voice for those that need help the most.

Prince Rupert’s 45,000 dollars is a small portion of the 3.6 million dollar funding project that will help 17 homeless outreach workers across the province. While there are many factors that contribute to the current homeless crisis across the province, a good portion of the accountability should be directed toward the various levels of government. It has been their decisions over the last number of years that have resulted in a number of changes to programs that the poor and homeless have relied on, changes which have been implemented without a proper blue print in place for those that are at the client end of the equation.

Returning some funding to the community in the way of an outreach worker is a positive step, but there’s much more that government can do to change a situation that should not exist as it does in a province as wealthy and progressive as British Columbia.

The Daily News had a full report on the local project in its Tuesday edition,

NEW GRANT MEANS HOMELESS WILL BE REACHED
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A Provincial grant will help homeless people in Prince Rupert find shelter and rebuild their lives.

The $45,000 grant will fund an outreach worker for three years under the umbrella of the North Coast Transition Society.

“Outreach workers help people who are homeless get the services they need,” said Minister Responsible for Housing Rich Coleman.

“The program is designed to help people break out of the cycle of poverty and homelessness by moving people from temporary, emergency shelter into more permanent, supportive housing.”

The outreach projects will provide immediate and long-term assistance by offering not only food, clothing and shelter but access to transition services such as life-skills training and health and social programs.

By providing intensive one-on-one help such as arranging and attending appointments with the homeless, the outreach workers enable them to receive health, nutrition and other basic services that are often taken for granted by the public, but not always used by those in need. Since the beginning of September, the outreach worker has helped 12 people find housing.

“We work with B. C. Housing to engage with unsheltered individuals and provide supports which will help them stabilize their lives,” said Christine White, NCTS executive director.

“While they’re in B. C. Housing, we’ll help them with life skills, budgeting and social issues, household management, crisis intervention… we’ll be there before, during and after this process.”

The program was a natural fit for the Transition Society, which has long dealt with homelessness issues as part of its primary work of helping women and children escape domestic violence, said White.

“It is part of our mandate to help women and children who are facing homelessness, to help them find affordable, sustainable housing,” she said.

“We are always really pushed to the limits to find that (affordable housing) with everything else we were already doing, but this gives us the extra time we need to put into that.”

The funding for Prince Rupert is part of a larger $3.6 million, three year program that funds 17 homeless outreach workers around the province.

The 17 outreach projects are in addition to other outreach services focusing on mental health being provided by the Canadian Mental Health Association in partnership with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. The 17 projects will receive $2.1 million during three years. The remaining $1.5 million will be allocated in the Vancouver region following an evaluation of the City of Vancouver pilot project, due at the end of this year. That program connected 200 people to support services between October 2005 and September 2006 and more than 80 per cent of those individuals remain in housing and on income assistance.