Homeless in Brandon

TIM SMITH/BRANDON SUN Enlarge Image

Sun managing editor James O’Connor meets with a group of homeless, or recently homeless, people who responded to his challenge to come to the Sun’s offices to prove Brandon has a affordable housing problem.

"So here’s home," I say, trying to break the ice.

Enlarge Image

Donna in her emergency self-contained shelter on Rosser Avenue. (TIM SMITH/BRANDON SUN)

"Yeah," Donna says, quietly.

We’re walking into the small, ground-floor room that the 49-year-old will call home for the next 20 days.

It’s on Rosser Avenue in a city block that houses the Canadian Mental Health apartment block and the Youth for Christ U-Turn 3 building.

It’s clean-looking, but spartan.

Donna moves some of her belongings off a couple of chairs for me and a photographer to have a seat.

She says we can publish her first name, but asked if we could keep her face out of the photograph.

No problem.

This can’t be easy on anyone — letting a reporter and photographer see you at what could be the worst times of your life.

I’m just glad she did.

I’m also glad that nine currently or recent homeless people showed up at the Brandon Sun office this week after I took another run at what I perceived to be a growing homelessness industry emerging in Brandon.

While I’ve encountered a few panhandlers lately, I’ve rarely seen people sleeping in alleys or behind buildings.

My earlier years in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg have conditioned me to get used to homeless people covered in rags and huddled over steam grates or in building vestibules as being the real face of the problem.

And when I first arrived in Brandon and people were talking about the homeless problem, I used to see a lot of advocates, but little evidence in the streets as I had witnessed it in other centres.

In my first year here, I even assigned a reporter and photographer to comb the back lanes and alleys after dark looking for real homeless, but all they found were people who wanted to be outside at night.

They had come from outside of Brandon and liked to party it up under the Eighth Street Bridge and Princess Park.

They were homeless by choice.

But things have changed.

Brandon is growing. Demand for accommodations of any kind has put a strain on the entire housing market.

Even the most modest rooms in rooming houses — and I mean rat-holes — are snapped up by students or newcomers.

That leaves many on the fringes of society — pushed into the margins by injury, disease, addiction or misfortune — looking for a place to stay at night.

And Donna isn’t homeless this weekend, as she’s in one of the four existing self-contained emergency shelter units. Five more will open soon when the Massey Harris housing project on Pacific Avenue is complete.

The YWCA also has some emergency family units.

What’s needed now is a larger dorm-style emergency shelter to help those at night as the weather gets colder. You know, like you see in the movies.

Brandon needs to step into the big leagues soon to deal with the emerging housing and homeless crisis.

And people like me need to take their blinders off and get their head out of the sand.

Stephanie Lockerby has been the homeless shelter co-ordinator for the Canadian Mental Health Association in Brandon for the past six years.

If something opens up in one of the four self-contained units in the CMHA complex, the word is put out that morning through places like the Samaritan House Food Bank on Rosser Avenue, the Helping Hands Soup Kitchen and at the 7th Street Health Access Centre.

By 11 a.m., Lockerby is assessing those with the greatest need.

"Absolute homeless takes priority over a couch surfer," she says matter-of factly. "And it’ll be full here fast, it doesn’t last."

Most people in need, such as Donna, receive $285 in provincial assistance for housing, plus extras for basic needs and a lucky few get a portable housing benefit. For Donna, it can add up to just more than $900 a month. That’s on the very high end of what any homeless person can receive in Brandon.

Donna will also pay $16.50 to live at the shelter.

If a person isn’t on assistance, but employed, then a pay schedule at the shelter is worked out.

And often refunded in full.

In the 21 days people can stay in the units, "our goal is to have them housed," Lockerby said.

That could mean a room to rent, a small apartment, into residential rehab — really whatever can be found.

"Anywhere that’s more permanent than the 21 days they have here," Lockerby said, noting there is an extension clause. "I always say to someone when I book them in, ‘I’ll work as hard with you as you work with me,’ so if someone’s in here for 21 days and they don’t see me once and they request an extension ... I say ‘unfortunately I can’t do anything for you.’

"There are other people that need the unit."

Donna says after she split up with her husband, she ended up in a women’s shelter.

She then ended up in a "really scummy" place downtown, where her security was at risk.

She eventually got into a better place, but had serious issues with a neighbour, so she was forced to live in a tent trailer.

And now it’s getting too cold.

"I was freezing, this was the first warm night I had," the small-framed woman said, as she sat gently on the edge of her bed holding her hands together.

She’s a high school grad who worked for the government for 15 years — "I’ve worked all my life," she says — but now her arthritis and scoliosis is getting bad and she’s finding it hard to get work.

She says she only takes pills for her pain and depression. She’s getting counselling.

"I’m trying to find a place, but there doesn’t seem to be anything ... there’s nothing to rent," Donna says. "If there is, it’s like the last place where people were breaking in and there’s fights all the time."

Donna has some family in the area, but she is on her own.

People on disability can get extra money through government if they volunteer their time. Donna volunteers at the food bank.

So what does Brandon need?

Affordable housing.

And that housing has to be closer to the Employment and Income Assistance rates.

The provincial Employment and Income Assistance Program provides financial help to Manitobans who have no other way to support themselves or their families.

But those rates, Donna and Lockerby agreed, really need to increase. A lot.

The loss in recent years of the Beaubier Hotel and the Brandon Inn — while both considered as being fleabags and blights on the community — still offered dozens of low-rent rooms that simply don’t exist now.

The Brandon Community Advisory Board for Homelessness brings together numerous groups with experience in these issues.

As you would have read last week in a letter to the editor from Lesley Glendinning, the group has worked hard to investigate the problem, through meeting with homeless and formerly homeless individuals, compiling data, and strategizing about effective solutions to help people in often-desperate situations.

Some 95 people sought, and were provided with, emergency shelter by the Canadian Mental Health Association in 2010.

Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of the report prepared by the CAB:

• According to Manitoba Health Statistics, Brandon’s population grew from 44,329 in 2005 to 46,487 in 2009 (4.9 per cent increase).

• Preliminary data indicate Manitoba’s real gross domestic product expanded by 2.4 per cent in 2010.

• Brandon’s 2010 unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent was significantly below the national average of 7.6 per cent.

• Brandon’s supply of housing has not kept pace with the city’s growth. This impacts both potential homeowners and renters.

• The average selling price of a home in Brandon rose from $120,000 in 2006 to $187,000 in 2010 (55 per cent increase).

• In the rental market, the expanding population has contributed to lower vacancy rates. Brandon’s vacancy rate for apartments was 1.3 per cent in April.

•To put Brandon’s vacancy rate in perspective, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s definition of a healthy vacancy rate is three per cent and the Canadian average vacancy rate for cities over 10,000 was 2.7 per cent in April.

• The limited supply of housing most acutely impacts individuals with lower incomes or who are unemployed.

The group of folks who showed up to tell their stories and prove me wrong on the homeless issue in Brandon were a varied lot.

There was a good mix of men and women, quiet and talkative, happier and sadder.

They all claim to have had bouts with unwanted homelessness. Or are currently on the streets. And sadly, the majority of the group were First Nations.

Here, unvarnished, are some of their comments:

• "I was looking after my mom, she had cancer, I ended up outside because I couldn’t pay the rent."

• "They said I needed a place before I could get welfare. It is a problem."

•"Without an address we get no benefits. Sometimes we’ll use other people’s addresses to get benefits, but we don’t live there, we’re still on the streets."

• "We have to hide all the time to sleep. But sometimes what I usually do when it’s cold out, is that I’ll crash out in a bank vestibule."

•"The city takes our blankets and clothes away; the cops come and take them away. You have to hide them or carry them with you."

•"Sometimes homelessness is caused by addiction. I went from being depressed to being addicted to being homeless. That was out west 10 years ago."

•"I was in jail for seven months and jail was a helluva lot better that being in the streets. There it’s just cold and you’re by yourself."

• "There’s no shelters or nothing here."

• "I hear the university kids and the immigrants are taking up all the spaces. That’s not right. I’ve lived in Canada all my life."

• "There’s so much stress in our heads, it makes you drink a lot."

• "We try to help ourselves to find a place and every time we do, there’s nothing."

• "You just don’t care sometimes. But we try and help each other."

•"We share clothes sometimes. We pick cans. We try and find some money for food and alcohol to stay warm."

• "In the summer we can use a tent."

• "But even in the summer, if you sleep in a park, you get picked up by the cops right away."

• "To stay warm, you wrap yourselves in clothing, in cardboard and bury yourself in leaves."

•"Brandon’s a lot nicer than Winnipeg. It’s tough there."

• "But winter’s coming. People are dying. I know people who have died on the streets."

• "The other day I got jumped."

• "A cop came up to me and just kicked my drink out of my hand."

• "We try to panhandle, but we get put down. Some people are really nice, but some people are rude."

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition October 22, 2011