For the homeless, a complicated life is reduced to the constant search for basic necessities: food and shelter.
Beyond those necessities, the layers of cause are deep and hurtful. From mental health issues to addictions; from a history of physical abuse to family tragedy; from racism to lack of education opportunity; from learning disabilities to government failure; from chronic health issues to economic victimization, the strata of cause for homelessness cannot be easily addressed.
It is as varied and as complicated as the individuals involved. And to suggest it is just a systemic problem, or that one cure fits all, is to be both simplistic and destined to fail.
But in Red Deer, a rare community full of compassion and initiative, the drive to end homelessness has taken the broad view.
The Mayor’s Task Force on Ending Homelessness was launched in 2005, and delivered a plan in 2009.
Now, years ahead of the 2018 goal to end chronic homelessness in our community, great progress has been made. EveryOne’s Home — Red Deer’s Five Year Plan Towards Ending Homelessness has been the cornerstone of significant advances in how we perceive, support and house those members of our society who have been pushed to the edges.
And now we are nearing a milestone.
In the fall, the city will conduct an official homeless census. Included will be information on who uses city services, including shelters. The survey will also provide demographic profiles of the homeless in Red Deer.
The assumption is that there will be a significant drop in the number of homeless in our community, from the 250 people identified in a survey some years ago.
“What we should see from that count is that we have a very much reduced population because we have taken it from a chronic and accumulative population to acute and episodic,” Mayor Morris Flewwelling told the Advocate recently.
“It will validate the resources we have put into it.”
If he is correct, then it will be easy to quantify the progress we have made.
But if he is wrong, we should not despair, because there are always multiple factors in play.
And when it comes to dealing with the homeless population, sometimes your success encourages other challenges.
The better your supports, the more you succeed in helping people stabilize their lives, the more likely it is that others will come seeking help, comfort, food and shelter.
And Red Deer has done a remarkable job of answering the calls of the needy.
A city report examining housing successes in 2010-2011 said that 136 Red Deer residents were housed and 78 per cent of those housed remained housed.
That is how we should measure success: Red Deer’s extraordinary web of supports and services has given the vast majority of that 78 per cent the wherewithal to remain in housing.
Today, the Advocate published the fifth and final part of a series on the homeless in Red Deer. Reporter Crystal Rhyno’s exceptional series has gone to the individual and societal roots of homelessness, and the personal demons that many in the homeless community must overcome to find a life of stability.
But her series also examined the depth of our community supports, and the foundation of compassion that makes those supports work.
And when the fall survey’s results are released, we need to be mindful that the campaign to end homelessness is not about numbers, it is about restoring dignity and purpose to as many lives as possible.
And in that regard, Red Deer is doing an unparalleled job.
John Stewart is the Advocate’s managing editor.