{"id":1620,"date":"2017-11-02T16:34:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T20:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluedoor.ca\/?p=1620"},"modified":"2017-11-02T16:34:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T20:34:05","slug":"housing-to-health-helps-clients-turn-place-to-live-into-a-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluedoor.ca\/housing-to-health-helps-clients-turn-place-to-live-into-a-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing to Health helps clients turn place to live into a home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"thestar.com<\/strong><\/h3>\n

York Region program provides participants with supports to help keep them housed.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
By\u00a0<\/span>CAMILLA CORNELL\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Special to the Star<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Sat., Oct. 28, 2017<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There are always places to go when you\u2019re homeless. The problem: They generally limit how long you can bunk there. And sometimes you don\u2019t really want to stick around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are usually a lotta guys in the room with stinky feet,\u201d says Tim McGrail, 54, who has spent his share of time in and out of shelters, mainly in downtown Toronto, as well as on couches at friends\u2019 apartments, and even sleeping outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI slept on park benches before they put those bars on them. It\u2019s hard to lie down on those,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I usually managed to get inside if it was really cold.\u201d Still, when there was violence in one of the shelters he was visiting, McGrail just left. \u201cI\u2019m a gentle giant,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t get involved in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGrail hasn\u2019t had an easy life. \u201cI learned to love drugs early,\u201d he says. He started with pot and then moved on to cocaine and crack. \u201cI wasn\u2019t leading a very stable life and I ended up on the streets,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 1994 that McGrail was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. \u201cI had it all my life, but I never knew I had it,\u201d he says. Now he wonders if he was \u201cself-medicating\u201d as stats show many people with mental illness do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For years, McGrail had no place to really call home. \u201cI stayed at the Good Shepherd for a month and at Porter Place, too. I\u2019d spend three nights on one friend\u2019s couch and then three nights on another,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In the shelters, people were generally kind and respectful but, as with anyone staying in a shelter, McGrail had to eat meals on a schedule and privacy was in short supply. He roomed with a friend for awhile, but got kicked out \u201cbecause the landlord didn\u2019t like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, he met the people at Housing to Health (H2H), the first housing initiative in York Region that aims to secure housing for the chronically homeless. Last year, the program \u2014 supported by York Region, United Way anchor agency Blue Door and local partners LOFT and Krasman Centre \u2014 succeeded in housing 30 of its hardest to house community members.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Although H2H occasionally helps locate housing for the homeless, that\u2019s not really its mandate, says Alex Cheng, client services director of Blue Door. Instead H2H focuses mainly on ensuring participants remain housed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe try to wrap supports around the individual,\u201d says Cheng. Sometimes that means pointing them to local grocery stores, food banks and community services, and sometimes it means helping them furnish their apartments to make them homey. McGrail, for instance, needed a toaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese places can be really bare-bones in terms of supplies,\u201d says Cheng. \u201cThose are the things that make a difference when it comes to turning a place to live into a real home.\u201d<\/p>\n

If a participant\u2019s relationship with a landlord runs into trouble, as it sometimes does, given that many participants have a history of trauma, addiction, and mental health struggles, \u201cwe try to help maintain a good relationship,\u201d says Cheng.<\/p>\n

Two H2H case workers and two peer support workers (who have lived experience on the streets) check in at intervals with the people who\u2019ve been housed in order to nip problems in the bud. And they spend a lot of time listening to program participants in an attempt to make the program better.<\/p>\n

McGrail, for example, recently offered feedback through a fidelity assessment intended to discover how the housing program was working and whether there were any gaps in the services provided. Among his feedback, McGrail indicated he liked that H2H staff checked in on him, it made him feel less lonely, and that they gave him a \u201chand up instead of a hand out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we found out through that study is that when people move into a place after being homeless for a long period of time, the first thing they lose is that social connection to other people,\u201d says Cheng.<\/p>\n

To combat that issue, Blue Door began offering opportunities for program participants to get together for social events. In future, \u201cwe hope to have a peer advisory group that meets regularly to provide feedback,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

McGrail, who has now been successfully housed for a year, appreciates the opportunity he has been given. He likes to get up on his own time and cook what he wants to eat. And he looks forward to regular visits from the H2H team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI live by myself,\u201d he says. \u201cI just lost my mom a month ago, so I don\u2019t really have too many people to talk to. They\u2019re really hands-on people \u2014 they don\u2019t just stick you in a room, tell you \u2018this is where you live now,\u2019 and then forget about you. They talk to me and they listen, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

York Region program provides participants with supports to help keep them housed. By\u00a0CAMILLA CORNELL\u00a0Special to the Star Sat., Oct. 28, 2017 There are always places to go when you\u2019re homeless. The problem: They generally limit how long you can bunk there. And sometimes you don\u2019t really want to stick around. \u201cThere are usually a lotta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t