It's Not Personal, It's Designed

Being homeless and in active addiction is tough. People tend to think it works in a rational linear sequence — intake, assessment, housing, stabilization, employment. It's not always so clean in real life.

The 7am problem

You have to be at work for 7am. It's a new job. Roofing. You're newly stabilized on methadone or suboxone and you haven't earned carries yet, so you have to drink it in front of someone every morning.

The earliest clinic opens at 6am. They close at 2pm. You get up, take a bus there, line up, get your drink. By the time you walk out you've got maybe 50 minutes to be on a job site in Kanata, Barrhaven, Orleans — anywhere outside downtown. If you have to cross the city you're late before you started.

You get fired fast on new jobs. Especially roofing. There's no goodwill yet, no track record. You miss the start, you're gone.

It's not ideal to get your medication at night, and the clinics close fairly early, so you're constantly transferring it to open pharmacies. Stuff gets lost. There's more failure points. It's stressful.

I've had clinics not fax or email a prescription, and then the pharmacy is closed. Now I'm out my medication, I'm getting sick, I still have a new job and responsibilities to deal with, less resources, and it makes it easy to want to feel better even though it's temporary. It makes it feel impossible to plan for the future.

Many times in my life I was forced to choose between employment, an appointment, getting my meds, or taking a bus early enough to get where I'm going. This isn't personal. It's just the way the system is designed.

Then once or twice a week you have to see the doctor. So you leave the job site mid-day, bus back across the city, sit and wait, see them, and bus back to work. Or you just miss the day. Either way the boss notices. You get fired.

Or you just miss work constantly in the beginning — at least until you earn your carries. And here's the trap: any slip and they take the carries away. A missed appointment, a missed dose, a dirty test. You lose the privilege you've been working toward, which means more daily clinic trips, which means more chances to be late or miss work, which means more slips. The system penalizes the exact people its own timing makes it hardest for. You lose your freedom. You lose your time.

And then after all that — after the 6am bus, the dose, the cross-city commute, the day on a roof, the doctor visit you somehow fit in — you have to bus back. Wherever you missed your meals. Or maybe there's a shelter dinner if you can make the window. Or you're in a tent and there isn't one. All of this while you're trying to get healthy.

Figure 1 — Same hours, different geometry

Shelter time vs real time

Or you could be homeless and have to do a bed check, then go to client services to get approval of that, then they want to see receipts if they give you bus tickets, or texts and paystubs to prove you're not gaming the system. You miss meal times. You have minimal food and no money until the end of the month. No ID, or not enough ID.

The ID bottleneck

Not having ID is the biggest failure point. The biggest way to create stress and friction in your life. You can't use a health card on its own, so if you don't have your license you need an Ontario photo ID card. Until then you're going to Money Mart or Cash 4 You — if you haven't ripped them off already — desperately looking for a place to cash your cheque. Or you'll find a convenience store, or someone who will do it for an egregious price.

There are ID clinics. There are resources. But the biggest thing should be making birth certificates more accessible, and faster processing times for the Ontario photo ID card. It's 80 bucks to get the birth certificate faster — I forget the price to order it standard — and you also need a guarantor. A nurse, doctor, professional who knows you. Some people have less access to that than others. And you won't get the photo ID without the birth certificate, so you can't do much.

Recently social services started using an RBC Visa, and I think that's a great idea. Previously we had bank letters and had to go to one specific branch we brought it to.

Provincial vs federal release

Coming out of provincial, you have release papers, so you can apply for welfare. Coming out of federal you have more support and you also have your federal ID card — prison ID, parole, whatever.

Provincial release is whack. The federal system is much better. I was actually very impressed with CSC. The ICPM program, the CRF — it's effective, and it sticks to basics.

When I was first released, I had to go to Maison Decision house and complete an 8-week rehab. I met my parole officer weekly. Then I went to a CRF and right away I was working, still seeing my PO weekly. I signed a document saying I could be drug tested three times in 90 days, plus any time there was suspicion. Then slowly my curfew was extended. I had weekend passes. I only had to see my PO biweekly. I did two six-month stints of day parole, then I got full parole and I had to get my own place. I was proactive and had housing lined up.

I'm not sure why it works better federally — I think it's risk management. Federally you're serving your sentence in the community. Provincially you're done doing time. The accountability is different.

Shelters and the resource pull

The other thing about shelters — the more motivated people end up taking resources from the less motivated. Clothing room, food room, whatever. But it's all relative. You have motivated drug users using resources well, and you have non-drug-addict homeless people who don't access them at all. Everyone has different levels of it, and the levels change.

Figure 2 — One missed window

Time compression

Time gets compressed. You'll have guys trying to find people to do labour and not pay them, or not pay them on time. It's hard to adhere to the rules of the shelter, the needs of medication, transportation, diet, sleep, and also get to work on time if the bus isn't running or the clinic isn't open.

These systems all run on different clocks. When the clocks don't line up, you don't get to plan a week. You get to survive a day.