The Mental Health Commission’s “At Home” experiment has been over for nearly two months now. Here at the NFB, we’ve been following the experiment via a cutting edge webdoc called Here At Home. In the coming weeks, we’ll be publishing a final series of films and preparing to update and archive the site. In the process, we’ll be removing some of the statistics about the beginning of the study to make room for new data. But some of that info is too interesting to lose, so it’s moving here, to the blog. This will be the first in a series of short takes on the five trial cities. Three stills, three quotes and nine stats each. Click on any of the photos to go to the Winnipeg page of our webdoc.
The still above is from the Here At Home film, “I’d Rather Not Talk,” featuring a study participant named Viola. As Michelle Coombs of Elizabeth Fry Toronto noted in an earlier blog post, Viola manages to say as much with her silences as with her speech.
Winnipeg is one of the coldest cities in the world. In “3 Hots & a Cot” Robert explains how to survive homelessness in a city where winter temperatures can dip as low as -40 C.
Lukas, a service provider with the At Home project, worked for years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Returning to his hometown of Winnipeg, he found that circumstances for the city’s most vulnerable were just as bad there as they were in Vancouver.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Moncton film, “Where I Belong” with Lisa Brown, Founder and Executive Director of Workman Arts in Toronto. Workman Arts is an arts and mental health company known internationally for its artistic collaborations, presentations, knowledge exchange, best practices, and research in the area of the impact of the arts on the quality of life of people living with mental illness and addiction.
I am very encouraged by Lise’s story and how the At Home/Chez Soi project has supported her in the way in which she wanted and needed the support.
The creation of art is often an isolating experience, particularly that of a painter. Most artists need quiet, calm psychologically safe spaces to work in.
Lise has found through having her own home and a supportive arts community, the perfect combination to a healthy and creative life.
For over 25 years, Workman Arts has provided a supportive arts community to artists living with a variety of mental illnesses. Like Lise’s mobile home and arts community, Workman Arts provides a psychologically safe space for artists to train, create and present. The artists develop their arts practices in a variety of disciplines from the Visual Arts and Media Arts, to Performing and Literary arts. Like Lise, these artists sell their work to the public as works of art.
Workman Arts member Melissa Bender says it like this:
“Show me a person with mental illness and I’ll show you a person with mental illness. Show me an artist with mental illness and I’ll show you an artist.”
And Lise, you have done just that. Your paintings are gorgeous. You are a fabulous artist. Please let us all know how we can see your portfolio and how to buy your work.
I would be privileged to have one of your works hanging in my home.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Moncton film “Tea or Salt” with Susan McIsaac, President and CEO of United Way Toronto. In 2007 McIsaac received the National Award of Excellence from United Way of Canada–Centraide Canada and in 2012, she was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal in recognition of her ongoing community service work.
Listening to Robert speak so candidly about living with schizoid personality disorder and the struggles he faces really drives home how important it is to have access to the right social supports and services.
Living with mental illness is challenging, especially when you are homeless and living without help. Robert talks about sleeping in parks, being exposed to the elements and fighting hunger many times. His reality has been one where he has had no money to afford the most basic of necessities like food or clothes. These challenges have only worked to intensify his situation.
Robert, like many others, is dealing with complex and often-times life changing issues. Issues like inadequate income, education and social supports. Having access to vital supports and services that help people live healthy, strong lives makes the difference. Through the At Home/Chez Soi program we see why. The shift in tone and demeanor when Robert talks about the program is obvious. He credits it with saving his life. He’s had a place to sleep for the last two years – a home where he is building a life. He’s been able to take cooking classes which have given him new, and potentially employable skills. And he now has regular access to food from the local food bank. We see that Robert is not only surviving, he’s thriving in this new environment.
We all recognize that the causes of mental illness are deep-rooted. And while they are complex, support doesn’t have to be. We can develop and extend educational programs to foster awareness. Build stronger collaboration among agencies, communities, individuals, and families. Learn from our challenges and move forward on our successes. And provide greater resources to support key social services and programs. Everyone’s life is touched by mental illness in some way. And we each have a role in being more mindful, accepting and empathetic to others. Only by supporting one another can we build a stronger, healthier community for us all.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Moncton film, “Open Sky” with Mary Alberti, CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario. Alberti has over twenty years’ experience in the non-profit sector. She joined the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario in 2001, following work in the community and mental health fields, and the policy and government sector.
In this film we meet Anthony, an individual who is living with schizophrenia. Anthony has been homeless and lived in shelters, but with the support of the At Home/Chez Soi initiative he has the opportunity to live in a one-bedroom apartment and then later relocates to a cooperative farm. Anthony talks about his life story, mentioning that initially he didn’t believe his diagnosis of schizophrenia, and that the voices he heard he thought were the spirit world communicating with him. The film introduces us to Anthony at a point in his life when he’s quite stable, he’s on medication, working at the coop farm and starting classes at university.
Anthony’s story mirrors many of the issues the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario (SSO) encounters on a routine basis. Each individual’s journey toward recovery is a personalized one and typically includes both high and low points. Social supports, such as housing and friends are just as crucial to the recovery as medical and mental health supports.
But Anthony also embodies the statement that the SSO shares with all: with access to treatments, services and supports individuals living with schizophrenia and psychosis are able to lead fulfilling lives.
The Schizophrenia Society of Ontario is a province-wide charitable organization that was founded in 1979 by Bill and Dorothy Jefferies to build awareness about serious mental illnesses and to support families and individuals living with these illnesses. Since its grassroots beginning, the SSO has expanded and now provides support and services to individuals, families and communities affected by schizophrenia and psychosis. These include education initiatives; awareness, information and knowledge building programs; advocacy; youth-oriented programming and a diverse research portfolio; all geared to breaking down stigma and making a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities who are living with schizophrenia and psychosis.
One of the largest obstacles the SSO, individuals and families living with schizophrenia face, is the stigma and discrimination associated with this illness. While any mental illness must battle public misconceptions, schizophrenia faces a wealth of prejudice and discrimination and initiatives like Here At Home/Ici, Chez Soi, which shed light on the reality of individuals who live with mental illnesses, help fight these. This film also helps support the message that the SSO works hard to communicate – that individuals living with schizophrenia, are not their diagnosis, they are individuals who, like the rest of society, have hopes, aspirations and goals. Just as individuals living with physical illnesses are not and should not be defined by their disease, individuals living with mental illnesses are more than their diagnosis.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Vancouver film, “A Model Person” with The Centre of Research, Policy & Program Development at the John Howard Society of Ontario. The Centre engages in research which contributes to the evidence-based literature in the criminal and social justice fields, policy analysis and rigorous program evaluation.
“I do brunch once a month.”
If this were uttered by a well-to-do urbanite, you’d probably take it as a given; banal, even. However, context matters. When MadDogg says it, it’s given entirely new meaning; to ‘do’ brunch, is to prepare a meal for 100 people. Many take for granted their disposable income, that they have a roof over their heads every night, that if they had a mental illness or addiction, they would never wind up in a shelter, let alone jail. ‘It couldn’t happen to me’. Stability is taken for granted. Unfortunately for thousands of Canadians, instability shapes their daily lives.
MadDogg, through the supportive housing he resides in, is experiencing stability and continuity for the first time in a long time. Homeless individuals face numerous challenges. Here’s some context: poverty, lack of social supports, unemployment and lack of stable housing all increase an individual’s likelihood of becoming homeless. Homelessness, in turn, is linked with mental illness and addictions, poor health outcomes, victimization and criminal justice system involvement. Due to a lack of community treatment options, many people with mental illness and/or addictions are ‘housed’ in overcrowded jails. And if these individuals were not homeless entering jail, they have a good chance of leaving homeless, which in turn increases the likelihood of re-incarceration. Not having housing arranged prior to release from jail creates, in criminal justice parlance, a ‘revolving door’.
A recent study by the John Howard Society of Ontario found that providing justice-involved homeless individuals with supportive housing, with staffing approaches that are client-centered and strengths-based, works to address the many challenges underlying homelessness. Client-centered care provides that client plans are individualized based on each client’s unique goals and capacities. MadDogg notes that the staff in his building see the qualities of a role model in him. What’s more, he enjoys working in the kitchen and receives modest compensation for his work. These types of experiences and interactions, which enhance self-sufficiency, self-esteem and structure, are invaluable steps toward recovery and integration. To someone who has not experienced mental illness or homelessness, this may not seem like much. But context matters.
Housing is a critical piece of the complicated homelessness puzzle; without a stable home and a fixed address, an individual’s ability to access social services, healthcare, treatment for mental illness and/or addictions and employment will be compromised. MadDogg’s story shows us what promise housing first approaches hold.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by the Here At Home webdoc.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post invited Sandra Dawson to write about the Here At Home site as a whole. Dawson is a mental health and homelessness advocate from Vancouver, and was an At Home/Chez Soi peer advisor (2009-2013). Creator of the Unsuicide Online Suicide Help Wiki, she can be found at @unsuicide.
I had a friend over for dinner who complimented my dishes. I told him I acquired the soup bowls in a thrift store for $2 each, after losing my wedding china long ago in one of my bouts of homelessness. On a disability pension I can’t afford to replace an entire set at once but since last regaining housing I’ve put together a mismatched but coherent set of blue glass pieces I can be proud of. Four dinner plates that match the bowls were $5 at a yard sale, tumblers I’ve bought one by one, and two beautiful mugs with First Nations designs were just $3 each. They look great together.
So although I still have a low income, I’ve learned ways to thrive in recovering from the trauma and loss that accompanies homelessness.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Montreal film, A New Lease, with Julia Gonsalves who supervises Adult and Senior Community Services at The 519 Church Street Community Centre. The 519 is a multi-service agency in downtown Toronto serving the local community as well as broader LGBTQ communities. It runs a weekly drop-in program for homeless, under-housed and vulnerable LGBTQ people and their allies, the first drop-in with this focus in Toronto. Julia wrote a regular column for Xtra! Canada’s largest and most widely read gay and lesbian publication from 2001-2012.
I just watched Simon seeing his apartment for the first time – his genuine excitement and optimism – and I think about the handful of folks who bounce into the drop-in to tell me they’ve “found a place”- it’s too far and maybe it’s got bugs and the people upstairs use crack and pound on the ceiling – but they’ve found a place. There is pride in that. At the same time, we both recognize, there is risk in that. Once you’ve got something, you’ve got something to lose. There is a component of tragic freedom in having nothing because you’ve got nothing to lose. In a tiny, enormous, painful way, you’re free. Going home – to a house – there is risk in that.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Toronto film,“Honestly Painful” with Lorraine Bentley, Executive Director of Options Bytown Non-Profit Housing Corporation, in Ottawa, an organization that provides housing and on-site support services to men and women with a history of homelessness, addictions and mental illness. Options Bytown serves a population that comes from shelters, institutions, and the streets. She is also the chair of Housing Plus: The Ottawa Supportive Housing Network.
Mark’s story is familiar to the tenants and staff team of Options Bytown. As the Executive Director of a supportive housing agency, I see how challenging it is for people like Mark to find and keep their housing. And I also share their joy when they move into one of our apartments and begin to see a different future for themselves – a future that includes stable, permanent and affordable housing along with the supports they need. (more…)
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Winnipeg film, “The Wound Inside,” with Julia Christensen, Research Fellow with the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research in Yellowknife and SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Geography at the University of British Columbia. Born and raised in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, she explores colonial continuities in the Canadian North and their role in shaping northern homelessness.
The first time I watched “The Wound Inside” by Darryl Nepinak, I was struck at the outset when the film’s protagonist, Lukas, reflects on coming back to Winnipeg, only to be confronted by deep-seated racism he was perhaps naïve to in his younger years. I can relate to the discomfort and disappointment of realizing, for the first time, that a beloved place is flawed and not immune to the kinds of prejudice and exclusion that are easy to say exist somewhere else but not here. Growing up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, I always felt a strong sense of community, and a kind of together-ness that stitched tight seams between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous inhabitants of the city. But more recently, when I moved back to my hometown, I saw the city with new eyes and understood for the first time that, like Winnipeg, the deep wound of colonialism persists unhealed.
This post is the latest in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience that offers a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Montreal film, “Not Chosen” with Kate Mechan, an anti-poverty activist who co-founded the Northern City Supportive Housing Coalition. The Coalition aims to manage Housing First programs for Whitehorse’s chronically under-housed citizens. Kate has been doing frontline outreach work with street-involved youth and adults for the better part of 10 years.
Life is a complex place. Some of us, for whatever reason, are faced with having to navigate through rougher waters. What exactly enables some of us to weather tougher times more gracefully than others is equally as complex as life. What remains true is that no matter how defeated one may feel there is always that gnawing inside us. I’ve had it described to me as the human spirit.
Valère Rioux – Not Chosen. At the whim of a computer in the beginning stages of the At Home/Chez Soi project, he is just 1 of the 970 individuals who is not provided with housing. Despite this, he manages to find himself a place to lay his head. With the support of SIDA Secours and a sense of being ready to try something different, his resilience is the momentum forward.
This post is the seventh in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience offering a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Toronto film, “Evicted” with Andrew Wynn-Williams, Executive Director of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness. Wynn-Williams has an extensive background in British Columbia public policy, having served as Director of Operations for the Premier’s Technology Council, as Executive Assistant to three different Ministers of the crown and as Director of Policy and Communications for the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce.
When Here at Home asked me to blog on this video, I think they were expecting me to write about Theresa, her struggles and how in any Housing First initiative, housing is the first step on a journey that may have many twists and turns. These are all true and all evident in this video. But that wasn’t what drew me.
Instead I was drawn to Bouchra, the service provider featured in this video. Because I am new to this sector, something that has really struck me is the dedication and compassion of the front line service workers. Many may claim that it is our mission in life to help others but it is the front line service worker who is actually out there putting that mission into action.
This post is the sixth in a series of articles from guest bloggers. Each week experts and activists in fields of homelessness and mental health explore some of the issues raised by a Here At Home film.
From NFB interactive, Here At Home is a cutting-edge documentary experience offering a look inside At Home, a radical experiment to end chronic homelessness. Led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the experiment is the largest of its kind in the world. The theory it’s testing: there’s a way to end homelessness for people with mental illness and it starts with giving them homes.
For today’s post we matched the Toronto film, “All These Stigmas” with Abe Oudshoorn, Assistant Professor, the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing at Western University, and Associate Scientist with Lawson Health Research Institute where his research focuses on health, homelessness, housing policy, and poverty. He is also the vice-chair of the London Homeless Coalition, a committee member with the London Housing Advisory Committee, and founder of the London Homelessness Outreach Network.
In “All These Stigmas” we hear about the risk of untreated trauma, in this case childhood sexual abuse leading to the onset of major mental illness. In JM’s case, the birth of his child and conflict in a relationship was enough to send him into a spiral leading to his homelessness. Only now that he is re-housed is he able to deal with the root issue, his own trauma.
Featuring interviews, articles and updates, the "Here At Home" blog is a place where we can dig a bit deeper into some of the ideas and experiences shaping the project.
The still above is from the Here At Home film, “I’d Rather Not Talk,” featuring a study participant named Viola. As Michelle Coombs of Elizabeth Fry Toronto noted in an earlier blog post, Viola manages to say as much with her silences as with her speech.
Winnipeg is one of the coldest cities in the world. In “3 Hots & a Cot” Robert explains how to survive homelessness in a city where winter temperatures can dip as low as -40 C.
Lukas, a service provider with the At Home project, worked for years in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Returning to his hometown of Winnipeg, he found that circumstances for the city’s most vulnerable were just as bad there as they were in Vancouver.
