By Janna Graham
Centre 507, a drop-in centre at Bank and Argyle streets, is launching a year-long initiative to bring vital health information to the city’s homeless.
“A lot of people don’t necessarily come into the shelters or get medical help for frostbite and other infections and it can get really serious”, says Jonathan Lorch, one of Centre 507’s outreach workers.
In the winter, a typical shift for Lorch consists of bundling up in warm clothes and hitting the streets.
Lorch spends most of his time building relationships with people who don’t tend to visit Centre 507 or the city’s shelters.
Usually, Lorch carries an outreach bag containing, among other things, condoms and clean needles.
During February, however, Lorch will also be carrying Centre 507’s new Street Health Action Kits (SHAcK).
SHAcK comes in a medium sized zip-locked plastic bag. The contents include a new pair of socks, a container of lip balm, moisturizer, hand warmers, a coupon for a Tim Horton’s coffee, a granola bar and a brochure with tips for staying warm and recognizing signs of infection caused by exposure to winter’s freezing temperatures.
This is the first part of a 12-month program targeting specific aspects of health on the street. The February focus is “Don’t Expose Yourself…to the elements!”.
Centre 507’s serves members of the community who are economically or socially disadvantaged.
Margaret Johnson, life management skills and outreach programs co-coordinator at Centre 507, develops workshops for the centre participants on everything from money management to dealing with depression.
The problem, according to Johnson, is that the centre can’t reach many people who don’t access facilities such as Centre 507. She says there are a thousand different reasons, ranging from addiction to depression, why some people don’t tap into drop-in centres’ resources. Johnson designed SHAcK after consulting with her outreach workers and Centretown community health nurse John McMeekin.
“The living conditions on the street open people up to all kinds of infections,” Johnson says. “The brochure tells them where to go for treatment and what do.”
In the streets, chapped lips or cracked skin can make an individual vulnerable to a myriad of infections. The kits, Johnson says, also act as an tool to make it easier for people living in the streets to talk about their health.
While Lorch, who has worked at Centre 507 for seven years, says his work is important, he also thinks programs like SHAcK are not a long term solution for the city’s homeless.
“Outreach is a band-aid solution for now, but it’s not going to put people into houses,” Lorch says.
Mary-Martha Hale, chair of Alliance to End Homelessness, says there are systemic reasons making it impossible for people to afford housing in Ottawa.
The local coalition represents more than 70 different organizations working to raise awareness about issues perpetuating homelessness in Ottawa.
Hale says provincial welfare was cut by 22 per cent in 1995, and two recent increases haven’t raised it back to pre-cut levels.
People relying on welfare, Employment Insurance benefits, Canadian Pension Plan or old age security are at risk of homelessness because their incomes are too low to afford housing.
“We need to build a variety of affordable housing,” Hale says.
Hale says that programs such as SHAcK are important because when people are in crisis, they can be linked to support and a spectrum of social services that a place like Centre 507 offers.
For people who visit Centre 507 on the second level of the McLeod Stewarton United Church, hot lunches, a job bank, regular workshops and a computer lab are all part of the centre’s resources.
Regular visitors such as Paul Albert come to Centre 507 because after paying rent for his Centretown rooming house, there’s little money left in his pocket.
Along with using the centre’s computers and job bank centre to look for work, Albert says, “I come here almost every day for lunch.”