Housing First not just effective, but vital

Frankly, I was more than a little surprised by Millard MacDonald's comments in Wednesday's Advocate, asserting that the links between mental illness, addictions and homelessness cannot be addressed by Housing First.

MacDonald is co-ordinator of Berachah Place, a safe zone for street people where they can spend their daytime hours keeping warm, getting a shower and their laundry done — generally getting off the streets between finding meals at other charities, and finding a bed at a shelter that night.

Berachah is an important link in the network of charities that keeps the vast majority of us from having to walk past homeless people sitting on doorsteps or sidewalks all day, asking us for handouts.

Berachah — like all the city's shelters, mat programs, soup kitchens, clothing recyclers and (importantly) Housing First — is a part of what keeps Red Deer from having to actually confront the faces of the drug industry, mental illness and extreme family breakdown in our city.

As much as many people want to look away from homeless people and their problems, without these programs, Red Deer would not be a city you'd want to live in. Our downtown would be a desolate ghetto of misery. Truly.

That's why I truly cannot understand why MacDonald would prioritize the path to wellness the way he does.

“They (the agencies) need to deal with addictions and mental health issues first,” MacDonald said. “They (the homeless) need to get well before they can be housed.”

That's putting the cart ahead of the horse. Two or three blocks ahead of the horse, in fact.

Nobody is entitled to a perfect life. Every person, every family, has problems and crises. Every family's story has dark chapters they need to live through and learn from.

Imagine having to face your problems, with no place to live. With all of your possessions in a black garbage bag — or if you're lucky, carried in a stolen grocery cart.

Being homeless is not your problem — it is the reason you will never be able to deal with your problems, while they only get multiplied inside you.

Mental illness, family breakdown and addictions lead people to behaviours that make them homeless. I cannot fathom why someone like MacDonald — who himself makes a lot of personal sacrifices to keep people safe until they can find their way off the streets — would believe you have to get addicts clean before they can find a place in which to live.

The mental health ward at our hospital is at maximum capacity. I don't know if they're even equipped to handle a large group people with both mental illness and a drug addiction.

Red Deer stalwartly denies every application it gets for a publicly administered live-in drug treatment centre. It took years of public shaming for Red Deer to even get a temporary detox centre.

Detox is only a first step for a person with drug addiction. After the few days it takes for the drugs to leave their bodies, we send people — with all their problems and personal demons — back onto the streets. How's that been working for us?

I'm reaching for the kernel of truth that MacDonald is trying to express here, and maybe that's it. Maybe his issue is that Red Deer simply won't allow the means for people to get clean and get the long-term support needed to deal with schizophrenia or other mental health issues, and then find housing that secures them the “normal” lives the rest of us enjoy.

But in the reality we have here today, I am confident that the internationally-proven Housing First program does indeed lead people off the streets, to a place where they can work on the things that put them there.

Detox does not work for everyone. That is amply proven by the people who go through it multiple times. Nor would would a full drug treatment and mental health centre work for everyone.

In the same way, some people in Red Deer's Housing First program relapse, and do things that get them kicked out. Some, but by no means all. Every success is one less addict sleeping in a shelter, or behind a garbage dumpster.

Wednesday's report in the Advocate interviewed a lifetime street person. That person has adapted to being homeless, and does not want much more than soup kitchens, Berachah Place, and a spot out of the wind to spend the night.

That is by no means the full story of homelessness. Many people are in a dark place daily, needing a refuge with 24/7 staff support so they can get get to a place of peace, where they can find some light.

In Red Deer, that would be the Buffalo, our Housing First program. As hard a place as that can be at times, it's the best place we have — until we get a full, medical, residential, publicly-administered drug treatment program that can also deal with mental illness.

Good luck with that. Truly.

Sochi Olympics off, to a record-setting start

So, how are your Olympics going so far? Has the Canadian Olympic Committee advertising convinced you that we are, indeed, Winter? On the whole, when it's minus 30, I'd rather be spring.

Ashley Wagner sees her score at the women's team
figure skating event at the Sochi Olympics.

I am sort of partial to the Canadian Tire Official Olympic Children's Choir singing We All Play for Canada. But the more I hear it, the more it begins to sound like the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall, or the Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Now that the thought has been planted in your head, I defy you not to think about it, every time the ad is played on TV. Which will be often.

Just as the cost of running the Winter Games ($50 billion and rising), goes up each time around, the carping when the product falls short of the ideal also increases.

I'm not too fussed about Russia televising a section of its opening ceremonies that was actually a dress rehearsal, for the locals. That ground had already been broken in China. During the show, when one of the magic rings failed to grow on cue, the world saw only four rings of power, but Russian viewers — who are paying a lot more than us for the experience — got to see all five.

I recall when one of the pillars hoisting the Olympic cauldron failed to rise at the Vancouver Games opening ceremony. That left poor Catriona Le May Doan standing with a torch and no place to go. But we didn't fake it. So there you are.

Nor am I too upset that the journalists at the games have crappy hotel rooms. This is Russia: doesn't everybody get crappy hotel rooms? Trapping athletes in the bathroom might be another story altogether, though.

This is early days for these Games, so when the cameras pan back to show an astounding lack of spectators at most of the venues, you can just assume the world is unfolding as it should. Things will pick up.

The official line is that 92 per cent of all the tickets have been sold. That must mean 80 per cent of ticket buyers are trapped in a Soviet-era lineup (or a bathroom) somewhere.

Besides, team figure skating — the early marquee event — is more of a TV thing, anyway.

A genuine Olympic Moment actually occurred at the women's team figure skating event.

The world saw American skater Ashley Wagner register all the stages of grief when she saw her score following her routine. The four-second video of that has eclipsed the opening ceremonies.

Japanese skater Mao Asada had the high score to that point, but had fallen during her routine. Wagner had skated well, and clean, but was given a lower score, relegating her team to a bronze standing.

A video clip that became the first viral sensation of the games shows Wagner registering shock, disbelief and then anger as she turned her head to tell the “kiss and cry” zone that “this is bullshit.” Then, she smiles and claps politely.

Later she tweeted: ““I AM AN OLYMPIC MEDALIST!!! THANK YOU TO MY INCREDIBLE TEAM!” Acceptance.

The Sochi Games also set a record for the rise of allegations of corruption and collusion in judging at figure skating events. Only one day in! And, again, Canadians are the target.

French magazine L'Equipe published an interview with an unnamed Russian coach, alleging that Russian and American judges had struck a “proposed barter” to help each other keep Canadian figure skaters off the top podium.

Shades of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier at Salt Lake City!

Russia would get to win the pairs and team events, the Americans would defeat Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in the dance event.

But, as they say in Russia, believe nothing until it is officially denied.

Canada has an early gold medal for Twitter at these games, and the person who created the feed isn't even in Russia.

A journalism student at Toronto's Centennial College, Alexander Broad, created @Socchi Problems as a local joke, hoping he'd get maybe 30 followers.

As of Sunday, he had more than 331,000. That's more than Canada's Olympic Team Twitter feed. That's more than the official Twitter feed for the Socchi Games Committee.

They're always creating new events at the Olympics. Twitter satires, and You Tube videos of incredulous athletes may just get included.

And the Games have only started. I just hope they have good ice at the curling venue. A distinct lack of fans in the stands should help prevent problems with that.

Happier trails in Central Alberta

Good news indeed that Alberta Transportation changed its mind, and will support shared-use trails along selected highways.

I have always wondered, as I pedalled along some rather narrow highway shoulders, heavy trucks whizzing past me at close range, why building a bike trail across the ditch closer to the fence lines should be opposed on the grounds they're not safe.

Likewise, it's good news that the federal government will chip in a dollar for every two dollars local groups can raise to build and maintain these off-highway links between communities.

This truly is a case of build-it-and-they-will-come. Not to mention becoming a fitness, recreation and tourism legacy for the future.

The web site for the TransCanada Trail says their ongoing trails building project is about 72 per cent complete. Some 17,000 km of trails, linking hundreds of communities all across Canada has already been built and is in use.

The entire 24,000 system is being planned for completion by 2017, but much of the remaining 6,500 km that would fill gaps in the network cost-to-coast will be the most difficult sections to build. There's still a lot of work to do.

Because Alberta has a long north-south section as well as an east-west section, we have the largest provincial portion of trail to complete. It's not hard to see why Alberta also has the smallest percentage of its trail network finished.

That's part of the reason the announcement Tuesday by Alberta Transportation not to oppose trail building along selected routes that follow highways is such a good thing.

First, it lowers costs tremendously. The routes are already in place, and no private land needs to be ceded or purchased by groups like the Central Alberta Regional Trails Society. And, for a cyclist planning a day-long or weekend spin to a nearby town, the route is already obvious on a map.

Right now, the society is working hard to get a trail link from Red Deer to Springbook. That would be a really nice afternoon ride for a recreational cyclist, but more importantly it would be a safe route for commuters who live in one community, but work in the other.

The ability to ride from Springbrook to Red Deer and back is not the barrier many non-cyclists think it might be. The perception of safety is. Hwy 2A is a nice stretch of road, with a broad shoulder, but it is also always heavy with traffic.

In my experience, you ride it because it's the only link to someplace that's much nicer to ride.

Similarly, the route from Penhold to Innisfail goes through some very nice terrain. A lot more people would ride or hike the route, if they could feel safe.

Drivers on Hwy 2A would also feel a lot more safe, not having to encroach the oncoming traffic lane, while they pass a cyclist (or a group of cyclists).

One of my personal favourite day trips begins in Benalto, with lunch at either Spruce View or Markerville. It's a lovely ride on very good roads, with not a lot of traffic.

If there was a safe link between Red Deer and Sylvan Lake (which would have to include safe passage across Hwy 2), that ride would become an epic loop, partly on trails, partly on secondary roads.

For me, that would involve a lot more Sunday lunches. Include trail links from Bowden to Red Deer (the longer-term plan being proposed), and now you're talking tourism and bed-and-breakfasts.

Think safe, pleasant trail links from Bowden all the way to Wetaskiwin and Pigeon Lake — all supported by local volunteer groups — and you're thinking of a tourism resource that can add real value to local economies.

Consider Rocky Mountain House, with a wilderness trail all the way to Nordegg, and you're thinking return visitors.

Europe is totally criss-crossed with these trails, beside highways and rail lines, following rivers, crossing farmlands. I've ridden well over 1,000 km of them over the years.

I know people in Europe who would be thrilled to consider a bike trip through the West. Time a trip with a local rodeo, fair or music festival and you've got yourself a destination for visitors who would happily pay for the experience.

Our easy access to the Rockies puts these experiences in closer contact with millions of visitors annually, who could be lured into a side adventure.

All it takes is that people in authority say yes to the idea. Like Alberta transportation minister Wayne Drysdale did Tuesday.

Make it safe, make it pleasant, make it fully-connected and easy to find, and I believe people will be truly surprised at how quickly it grows in popularity. Happier trails.

(Note: Greg Neiman is also president of the the Red Deer Association for Bicycle Commuting, a group that advocates for a more bike-friendly region.)

Canada, as satire, is more believeable

It's too easy to say that foreigners (particularly Americans) don't understand Canada. I'd say that to understand our culture, you just have to appreciate our brand of satire.

So American writer Gary Shteyngart has nothing to apologize for when he said that Canadian literature is too beholden to cultural granting bodies to be able to create truly original stories.

It's not easy to be original when your livelihood ultimately depends on policy made by the prime minister's office.

This year, we support a vibrant CanLit community; next year, maybe 10 per cent less. We need to save tax dollars, so that wealthy Canadian couples can split incomes for tax purposes.

This year, we'll make tax concessions to major private funders to support a vibrant CanLit community for us. Next year, we're more worried about sponsoring foreign welders who can build us a pipeline.

In that kind of environment, can you really expect all our writers to be a Mordecai Richler or a Will Ferguson?

Gary Shteyngart was born Igor Shteyngart, in Leningrad. His family left Russia for the U.S. in 1979, when he was seven years old and his biography notes young Gary grew up in an apartment with no television.

Now there's an upbringing that would help a young mind appreciate absurdities. Thus, he was able to compose stories in a manner that Wikipedia describes as “elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.” Like Absurdistan.

Too bad the name was already taken, because since Shteyngart claims to really love Canada, he could write the next Great Canadian Novel under the same title. In Canada, it's allowable for a Russian-American to do that.

Our government that creates the grants allowing Canadian writers to both create our national literature and eat, takes weeks to follow a 12-step formal protocol to write a 140-character tweet.

The collective salaries of every assistant-to-the-assistant, right up to cabinet-level tweaking and wordsmithing of spontaneous social media chatter must cost millions of dollars a year. This, to produce: “Browse the Mobile Protection Toolbox to learn facts & find tips to protect yourself. GetCyberSafe.”

Word-perfect.

Not only that, but high-level interdepartmental meetings are arranged (probably over a nice lunch), to produce agreements to re-tweet each other's spontaneous tweets, thereby creating the appearance the government is using social media successfully.

With all that effort, they still cannot come up with enough material to make it appear that our government is social-media-savvy, so they actually copy and paste each other's material, and send it as their own.

And people say the tax money that helps sponsor the Scotiabank Giller Prize is wasted.

If the above scenario appeared in a new novel submitted for consideration by the Giller jury (which in 2012 included Shteyngart), it would probably be tossed as too unbelievable.

As would a story about the mayor of a fictional Canadian megacity who admits to using illegal drugs, who is frequently publicly drunk and profane, who consorts with underworld agents and professes that what he does on his own time, legal or not, is none of your business.

And, who stands an even-money chance of being re-elected, because people believe he can save them a hundred bucks or so on their property taxes.

Now, if you could sew both scenarios into the same story, then you'd be talking prize money. Or, in Canada, you could publish the whole mashup in a daily newspaper — and not get sued.

Maybe the reason Canadian fiction writers don't take the kinds of risks that Shteyngart would like to see, is that the truth of Canadian life is already too incredible.

In Canada, this kind of behaviour is called your basic run-of-the-mill conservative governance. How could fiction compete with that?

We do much better when our fiction leaves our weather behind, as in Ferguson's novel 419, which won the Giller in the year Shteyngart was a prize jurist. Start and end the story in Calgary, but all the good stuff happens in Africa.