Angels of the Road was a journey into the world of shelters and homelessness across Canada, which began in the spring of 2009. But let me begin at the very beginning before the first bus ticket was even purchased, back in July of 2008 when “push came to shove” as my granny would say. Over a 24 hour period a 19 year old boy I knew from the D.I. (Calgary
Drop-In) became caught up in an escalating cycle of violence, which most surely would have ended with someone being dead. The police did nothing (claimed they needed a complaining witness) and all the D.I. could do was life-bar the young man, thereby removing the potential for other clients being hurt. This was the proverbial straw… I had long felt that, with everything we have to offer our clients in terms of programs and resources, too few of them were
moving forward with their lives. The most obvious possible cause was because of the immense size of our client base (1100 -1200 people per day) we were reduced to crowd control and didn’t have the resources (personally or as an agency) to provide the necessary supports to individual clients. Did small agencies have similar issues? From the view point of a civilian (regular person outside of the shelter industry) having all the resources in one place seems like a good
idea and from the view point of staff these seem like good programs. So why aren’t we getting a better result?
The only perspective from which I (or anyone else for that matter) had not yet examined the system was the view of a client. Client surveys are frequently done, but the responses are often skewed by what the client thinks you want to hear. One man who volunteers at a soup kitchen said, “I’ve never heard a client complain about the food”…once I started eating with the clients I heard many…many complaints about the food. I reasonably felt that if I were to enter the shelter system as a client, I could make unbiased observations of the system and its programs. To the best of my knowledge no one had ever done a longitudinal, broad sampling “observer / participant "study into homelessness. I thought someone should do a study… usually the purvue of academics and graduate students, I realized few people were in a better position to take on the task then I was. My children were grown, I am (was) fairly healthy, no husband, no mortgage, no pets…. Although I would have to give-up a job that I loved; I would certainly come back from this a better social worker then when I left. There were no research grants for a non-students and I had no interest in getting another degree to line my under-ware drawer. There were no sponsorships because as important as this information could prove to be no one really wants to admit that homelessness is a serious problem. So I cashed in my RRSPs and my meager saving and set out in search of a better way to help my clients move forward with their lives.
For the first year I spent my time moving through shelters in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Then in spring 2010 I visited the Maritimes and Ontario, the whole thing ground to a halt after my money ran out in September 2010. I still spend time with the clients (as I did in Hamilton) practicing free-style social work and I will learn about
local industry conditions through interaction with staff and management of the facilities that I visit.
When this journey I call Angels of the Road began, I had only the vague purpose of learning whatever I could about Canada’s homeless population and the shelter system that serves them, the good and the bad. Maybe through the knowledge gained from that experience, I could find a better way of delivering programs and helping our client move forward out of homelessness. I have learned more than I could have ever imagined, all of which I will share
with you over time, both on this website and through my blogs.
Drop-In) became caught up in an escalating cycle of violence, which most surely would have ended with someone being dead. The police did nothing (claimed they needed a complaining witness) and all the D.I. could do was life-bar the young man, thereby removing the potential for other clients being hurt. This was the proverbial straw… I had long felt that, with everything we have to offer our clients in terms of programs and resources, too few of them were
moving forward with their lives. The most obvious possible cause was because of the immense size of our client base (1100 -1200 people per day) we were reduced to crowd control and didn’t have the resources (personally or as an agency) to provide the necessary supports to individual clients. Did small agencies have similar issues? From the view point of a civilian (regular person outside of the shelter industry) having all the resources in one place seems like a good
idea and from the view point of staff these seem like good programs. So why aren’t we getting a better result?
The only perspective from which I (or anyone else for that matter) had not yet examined the system was the view of a client. Client surveys are frequently done, but the responses are often skewed by what the client thinks you want to hear. One man who volunteers at a soup kitchen said, “I’ve never heard a client complain about the food”…once I started eating with the clients I heard many…many complaints about the food. I reasonably felt that if I were to enter the shelter system as a client, I could make unbiased observations of the system and its programs. To the best of my knowledge no one had ever done a longitudinal, broad sampling “observer / participant "study into homelessness. I thought someone should do a study… usually the purvue of academics and graduate students, I realized few people were in a better position to take on the task then I was. My children were grown, I am (was) fairly healthy, no husband, no mortgage, no pets…. Although I would have to give-up a job that I loved; I would certainly come back from this a better social worker then when I left. There were no research grants for a non-students and I had no interest in getting another degree to line my under-ware drawer. There were no sponsorships because as important as this information could prove to be no one really wants to admit that homelessness is a serious problem. So I cashed in my RRSPs and my meager saving and set out in search of a better way to help my clients move forward with their lives.
For the first year I spent my time moving through shelters in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Then in spring 2010 I visited the Maritimes and Ontario, the whole thing ground to a halt after my money ran out in September 2010. I still spend time with the clients (as I did in Hamilton) practicing free-style social work and I will learn about
local industry conditions through interaction with staff and management of the facilities that I visit.
When this journey I call Angels of the Road began, I had only the vague purpose of learning whatever I could about Canada’s homeless population and the shelter system that serves them, the good and the bad. Maybe through the knowledge gained from that experience, I could find a better way of delivering programs and helping our client move forward out of homelessness. I have learned more than I could have ever imagined, all of which I will share
with you over time, both on this website and through my blogs.
