In early September, we launched an Outreach Housing Team whose sole purpose is to locate, engage, and house people who are homeless. The team will work in under-serviced and unreached areas of the city where homeless people congregate and provide follow-up support, resources, and services as required for those who are housed.
We have formed valuable partnerships with the Neighbour Centre, Edmonton Public Library, Homeward Trust’s Coordinated Intake Workers, All Saints Cathedral, and other organizations to ensure we are reaching out to as many homeless people as we can.
“The Outreach Housing Team should help us double the number of homeless people we house and support to 500 per year.”
– Bissell Centre’s CEO, Mark Holmgren
The new Outreach Housing Team is an important addition to our Housing Services Programs, which includes Homeless to Homes (H2H) and Community Bridge. H2H asserts that housing should be addressed prior to any other barrier in an individual’s life by providing stable housing, while our Community Bridge aims to prevent homelessness by stopping imminent evictions by providing financial support and intervention services for people at risk of becoming homeless.
Funding for the Outreach Housing Team was initiated by the Strathcona High School Leadership Program through their Treehouse Project fundraiser in early 2015. They raised $190,000, which shattered their fundraising goal and gave us the opportunity to expand the size and reach of our team!
Please visit the Outreach Housing Team webpage for more information and how to access the team.
In November 2011 I received a call from a colleague about a woman with a disabled son who was facing imminent eviction. A single mother, she had built a small cleaning business so she could work her own hours and be home for her son when he came home from school. A number of circumstances impacted her income: the loss of one client, another who did not pay her, and unexpected repairs to her van. She had to get her van fixed but this put her behind in her rent. She was recovering financially but too far behind to address her arrears.
“The Community Bridge is one example of how Bissell Centre is trying to end homelessness. In this case, we strive to prevent it. The human benefits are obvious but it also benefits the rest of us to have fewer people living on the street and in shelters.”
My colleague told me that this single working mothershe was denied assistance from the government. He tried to appeal to officials high up in the Alberta Government at the time, but the government refused to help. This incensed me. The woman had no other supports and if she lost her home, she would be on the street and at risk of losing her son.
The next day I happened to be speaking alongside a board member to the Edmonton Presbytery of the United Church. At that meeting I shared the woman’s story and announced I was creating a small fund (called the Bridge Fund) to help this woman and others who had nowhere else to turn for assistance.
I explained I was launching the fund with $500 of my own money. My board member committed $2,500. I informed our United Church friends that from November until the end of January, 25% of any funds coming to us from the church, its many congregations and groups, would be directed to this fund. By the end of January we had $10,000.
We assisted the woman. She had saved enough for rent, but had no damage deposit. She knew she needed to move; her place was too expensive. We provided a damage deposit and sent a staff person alongside two of our casual workers to move her into a better, more affordable home. It cost approximately $1,200 to help her and it saved her and her son from being homeless. This initial expense also saved our safety net systems significantly more money than it would have cost to support a newly homeless family.
We continued to provide what assistance we could to those who needed our help as a last resort and over the course of a year were able to stop the evictions of a couple of dozen people. I had to add some more money over the course of the year. We provided this help without any dedicated staffing in addition to current activities. No one funded it other than our donors.
During the course of providing this help, I began talking with others about needing a more structured service like this. Over the course of eight months or so, the conversations I was having with individuals grew to a group conversation that included representatives from EPCOR, the Homeless Commission, the Edmonton Social Planning Council, Canadian Red Cross, Alberta/NWT Region, Edmonton Apartment Association, Stollery Charitable Foundation, United Way of the Alberta Capital Region, and the Edmonton Community Foundation.
Thanks to a small grant from the Homeless Commission, we contracted a consultant to assist us in the development of a design brief for what is currently known as the Community Bridge. We outlined the project design, detailed purpose, objectives, and services to be provided by the program, which I am pleased to share with you:
“The Community Bridge is a rapid response intervention that stops an imminent eviction and provides interventions/services purposed to ensure that causes of the eviction are effectively addressed in order to ward off reoccurrence.
“The interventions are multi-faceted but include funds that can be accessed, when required, to pay delinquent rent, utilities, or other costs that, if not addressed, will cause eviction to take place. The use of such funds is not, however, the answer by itself.”
“Along with the funds, rapid interventions that address ongoing housing, income or employment and other contributing factors are required more often than not in order to sustain housing after the eviction has been stopped.”
“In effect, when dollars are provided they serve as the foundation of a bridge through an immediate cash crisis. The money provides time for further interventions and assistance to help the individual/family make the necessary adjustments or changes required to increase financial stability and maintain their accommodation permanently.”
Our design of this prototype purposefully did not call for a predetermined set of limits regarding how we might support a client, how often, and so forth. We simply started with the goal of preventing evictions. We did not, and still do not, have a set ceiling on how much money we will provide to an individual or family. We do not limit our help to just one time. We want low barriers to the service in order to understand the range and complexity of issues people experience and then be free to respond in whatever way is necessary.
The design brief and further discussions resulted in the Community Bridge prototype receiving strong funding commitments from Stollery Charitable Foundation, Edmonton Community Foundation, the Homeless Commission, and the United Way. On April 1, 2014 we began to design the implementation of the prototype, and then began helping clients in July, 2014. The program relied on the funding of one staff person and a “loan fund” to draw on. To further our impact, we formed partnerships with groups like the Edmonton Mennonite Centre and Bent Arrow Healing Society so that we could help clients of theirs.
We have just completed one year of the prototype and we provided services to 110 cases consisting of 266 individuals, half of whom were children. To be clear, this means that 266 individuals were not evicted and forced to go to shelters or live on the street.
Not everyone who requested support from the Community Bridge needed emergency funds. In fact, for every ten cases that required financial assistance, another seven helped to avoid eviction through our knowledge of systems and ability to help clients access existing emergency supports.
Our evaluation of the Community Bridge includes one month and three month follow up visits with individuals to assess their well-being and the longevity of the program. Sometimes, we have challenges connecting with clients. Many lack phones or have pay as you go phones, which they do not always have the funds required to operate. Many are working or active away from the home. Currently approximately one-third of clients fall into this category. However, of the remaining 70 cases where follow up protocols took place, 14 clients had been evicted (20%). Conversely, this means 80% had retained their housing. We hope to track these cases over a long period of time as the program goes forward, funding allowing.
We are currently working with our funders to plan for the future. Currently it costs $900 per individual helped, which is far less than the costs of supporting a person who has lost their home. It is cost-effective for landlords too, given that on average it costs a landlord $2,500 to evict a family.
Beyond the evident cost savings, the Community Bridge offers individuals and their families the opportunity to avoid the physical and emotional toll of eviction. When evicted, a family loses everything: furniture, clothing, valued possessions, security… everything. Preventing another child from living through this traumatic experience is invaluable.
One man we helped avoid eviction would have been sent back to prison; having accommodation was a condition of his parole. Had he become homeless he would have been returned to jail for one year – the cost: $110,000.
More people can benefit from this kind of help. Our plan to grow this service will also see the per case costs go from $900 per case to approximately $650 per case while the cost savings to society go up.
This is one example of how Bissell Centre is trying to end homelessness. In the case of the Community Bridge, we strive to prevent it. The human benefits are obvious but it also benefits the rest of us to have fewer people living on the street and in shelters.
If this work speaks to you and you want to support our efforts, please consider donating to Bissell Centre. Each year we generate one third of our income through philanthropic donations. Without the support of our generous and committed donors, we could not do all that we do.
UPDATE: Because of your help, we collected 2,154 pairs of NEW underwear for the homeless folks in our community. That’s 1,154 above our initial goal of 1,000!
Thank You!!
We are excited to host our 2nd Annual #DropYourGonch underwear campaign encouraging the public to donate NEW underwear for homeless people in Edmonton.
The campaign starts Monday, July 20th and wraps up with a main event on Saturday, July 25th at our Thrift Shoppe (8818-118th Avenue) from 10:00am – 4:00pm.
The goal of the campaign is to collect 1,000 pairs of NEW underwear to meet the need through to the end of summer.
Underwear is one of the most asked for clothing items by people in the inner-city community, but one of the least donated.
“We are critically low and can’t fill the need at this moment”
– Devin Komarniski, Manager of Marketing and Communications
The campaign also promotes health and hygiene, while boosting self-esteem and confidence, which are crucial for people who are transitioning out of homelessness. People living on the streets may go months without a new pair of underwear, which creates discomfort and a lack of dignity as they struggle to get off the streets.
For more information about drop-off locations, how to donate online, and to learn more about the campaign, please visit our webpage.
Thanks to the members of Muslims for Peace who visited us on Wednesday, July 8th, and served food and handed out free backpacks, socks, t-shirts, hoodies, granola bars, and toiletries to hundreds of our participants.
They purchased all of the food and items themselves, in the wake of their successful crowdfunding campaign where they encouraged the public to give up their lunch and donate $10 to help people in need.
Through their efforts, they raised over $10,000 in just two months!
Muslims for Peace are a local, grassroots group who come together to help people who are less fortunate. They were inspired to give when they were downtown earlier in the year and came across a few people who were living on the streets.
“We met a few people who were homeless and we were inspired by their stories. We knew at that point we wanted to help. “
– Sally, a member of Muslims for Peace
Their involvement at Bissell Centre coincides with Ramadan where Muslims around the world take the time to reflect on people less fortunate and act upon the importance to give and help others in need.
We are so grateful they chose to give to people in the inner-city of Edmonton to ensure they are well fed and have what they need to survive on the streets.
My mom was out digging clams when she gave birth to me on a rock in the ocean. That’s how I got my name. And that’s where I got my lot in life. Things were always rocky.
I never got to go to school. I grew up on the West Coast, and from the time I was just a kid, I was dragged out on the fishing boat with my mom and dad. They made okay money, but they were both alcoholics and they’d just throw it all away.
My dad was always so angry. He’d try to drink away his problems but that just made him angrier. He’d take out his anger on my mom, on my siblings, and on me. I would try to protect my mom, but that just meant that I’d get hit harder.
Mom tried so hard to do good things for her kids. She was the light in my life. She told me to never hurt the people in your life and always try to be a good person.
When she died, I felt like I lost my whole world. It was like the only light I ever knew went out forever. Before she passed away, she told me I needed to go somewhere where I didn’t know anybody and start over. So that’s what I did. I came to Edmonton 37 years ago. But the hard times followed me.
“I was homeless. I had nothing. No money. No family. I was as low as you could get. “
I was on the streets for two years when I first got to Edmonton. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have anywhere to go. And living on the streets is scary. You never know if somebody is going to try to attack you or stab you. There’s no one you can trust.
Like my mom, I tried to do the best I could. But just like my mom, I had a hard time. Those old ways that I learned from my parents got the best of me. I was so angry. I started drinking and doing drugs to try to stop the pain. Alcohol helped me forget just how worthless everything made me feel.
But I became a devil when I drank. It didn’t make me feel any better. I’d get so drunk that I couldn’t care for anyone. My family. My partners. My kids. Myself.
People make you feel so useless when you have a hard time. “You’re nothing but an addict” they say, and they put you down and don’t want to see you as a person. But people like me with addictions aren’t bad. We just need someone to help us believe we can be good. That we can change. I have changed.
I’ve been sober now for more than 20 years. I still feel angry and hopeless sometimes, but I got help. Bissell Centre helped me find my hope for something better.
This is why I love Bissell Centre. Their doors are always open. Instead of telling me I was nothing, they listened to me. They helped me break the cycle of violence and abuse I was born into. They took my hand and held it and never let it go.
I’m talking now and because of help I received at Bissell Centre, I am beginning to understand. I had to talk about all the abuse I suffered and all the rage I felt. I had to come to terms with my past before I could do anything to make something better happen.
I cry when I think of what my dad went through in residential school. It is sad that he never got help and he took all of this to his grave. I pray for him, and I am grateful that I found the help I needed to try to turn things around.
I’ve met people who are just as angry and hopeless as I was. People who are hungry every day. People who turn to drugs and alcohol to try to cope. People who turn to crime and violence to keep supporting their habits. People like my mom and dad who just can’t seem to escape the cycle.
I’ve made it through this life and I survived. I’m grateful for the second chance Bissell Centre gave me. My life can be something different now.
I want to make a difference. I’d like to help others just like me, who didn’t get a childhood and who can’t get out of the dark. I want to go to school and become a councilor. I want to help others just like Bissell Centre helped me.
Thank you for helping me feel at peace for the first time in my life.
Your gift will mean Bissell Centre can be there again for someone like Rocky, when they need a caring person to listen and offer them a second (or third) chance.
In cooperation with Aboriginal organizations, the Government of Canada chose National Aboriginal Day to be celebrated every year on June 21st, the summer solstice. For generations, Aboriginal peoples have celebrated their culture in conjunction with the summer solstice due to its significance as the longest day of the year.
Below is list of events in Edmonton and links for more information on how to celebrate this year’s National Aboriginal Day:
National Aboriginal Day Official Commemoration:
Location: Canada Place (9700 Jasper Avenue)
Date: Friday, June 19th
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
Elizabeth Fry Association:
(serving cultural food)
Location: 10523 – 100 Avenue
Date: Friday, June 19th
Time: 12:00pm
Aboriginal Day Live & Celebration:
Location: Louise McKinney Riverfront Park
(9999 Grierson Hill Rd)
Date: Saturday, June 20th
Time: 12:00pm (concert at 6:30pm)
National Aboriginal Day Summer Solstice Celebration:
Location: Churchill Square
Date: Sunday, June 21st
Time: 11:00am – 6:00pm
For three weeks, they promoted the fundraiser by asking the public to donate diapers or formula with the opportunity to receive jewellery for every box that contained 100+ diapers or a sauna card for every can of formula that was 600g or more. People were also entered into a final draw with giveaways from local businesses.
The response was overwhelming and the generous support from the fundraiser will immediately help families living in poverty who struggle to afford diapers and formula for their children and who rely on our Child & Family Services Program for help.
We are grateful for their efforts and very thankful for our partnership!
Do you want to get involved in fundraiser to help individuals and families in poverty? Visit our Community Giving page to get started now!
For twelve years, the Heart of the City Music Festival has enlivened Edmonton’s core for one weekend in June by filling it with the work of the city’s musicians and artists.
The festival’s continued mandate is to foster local artistic talent by providing performers and artists at all levels with an opportunity to showcase their musical talents and to strengthen inner-city community engagement.
The Heart of the City Music Festival is FREE for every one of all ages to attend and is supported by hundreds of partners and volunteers working hard to provide a family-friendly music and arts festival.
Bissell Centre is proud to be one of the many sponsors of the event, along with McCauley Community League, Boyle Street Community Services, Bent Arrow, E4C, and other dedicated supporters.
2015 Heart of the City Music Festival:
Saturday, June 6th – 11:00am to 9:00pm
Sunday, June 7th – 11:00am to 5:00pm
Little Italy’s Giovanni Caboto Park (located between 108A and 109A Avenues and 94 and 95 streets.)
FREE for everyone to attend
All ages are welcome
City of Edmonton bylaws prohibit the attendance of dogs
This past year, 2014-2015, had its challenges, but overall we had a stellar year.
We weathered another Thrift Shoppe fire and thanks to hundreds and hundreds of kind citizens we were able to restock our shop and reopen in November.
Our 24/7 MAP prototype finished its second year and demonstrated that it is an effective and efficient way to divert crises from the police and emergency medical services while offering humane interventions that assist the homeless in getting connected to services and supports they need.
We are currently working with our community colleagues to review the prototype and figure out how, together, to move forward with an integrated, community approach to crisis diversion services.
We added a Jobs Club to our mix of employment services, which helped find permanent jobs for 100 of our clients – all of them paying above a living wage.
Late in the year, we were able to add three more Housing First staff who are focusing on finding homes for large families with complex needs.
We also worked to better integrate all of our services in order to make it easier for people to access them, and have nearly completed the creation of a database that will help us better understand, act, and track our work with those who seek our help.
We also ended the year in strong financial shape, generating a small surplus in operations, which will go into our “rainy day” fund.
April 1 marked the beginning of our new fiscal year. It’s going to be a challenging one, given the economic climate. We anticipate some reduced funding from our provincial funders, but believe at this writing, the reductions will be manageable.
That said, we have secured or will be securing resources to continue to grow our services to address our mission and priorities. Our two major priorities this year are to house more homeless people and put more people to work.
Currently we are designing a new assertive outreach team that will consist of seven staff, all of them devoted to seeking out homeless individuals and working with them to find and sustain housing.
This team will add to our already considerable Housing First work and will also help those homeless individuals who do not qualify for Housing First assistance. In the first year, our goal is to find housing for 150 more homeless people than we currently do each year. Stay tuned for more on this; we hope to launch in July or August.
We are also working on a plan that will increase our capacity to secure more temporary and permanent employment for low income workers. While I do not have a launch date in mind as of yet, we hope to get this off the ground within the next 12 months.
Our sincere condolences go out to the friends and family of the individual who lost his life in the workplace accident in Westmount yesterday. We are also heartened by the outpouring of care and concern from communities in the wake of what has happened.
Some media reports have mentioned that the individual was placed at the worksite by Bissell Centre. To clarify these reports, our Casual Labour Program did not place the individual at this jobsite or to any of the companies cited by the media. We are not a subcontractor and do not hire people directly, but connect workers with companies that are registered with Bissell Centre.
We are still awaiting the official identity of the individual and will share information when more is known.
About our Casual Labour Program:
Over 20 years ago, we recognized the safety concerns of workers. We started our Casual Labour Program as a social mission to address those concerns and to reduce barriers to employment for people on the street. We are committed to providing our participants the training and resources needed to ensure safety and success in the workplace.
Worker Safety and Employer Accountability:
Our Casual Labour Program offers up to 100 job placements every day for the unemployed. We work closely with over 500 registered employers who understand and agree to our standards regarding workplace safety, the hiring process, and successful payment for the worker. In 2014, we conducted 60 jobsite visits and we ended relationships with four businesses that did not meet our quality control standards.
Worker safety is our highest priority. A committee of participants in our program meets regularly to share their experiences on the jobsite and provide feedback and raise concerns in order to increase our awareness about safety in the workplace. Workers are encouraged to leave the jobsite if safety is an issue. That way, Bissell staff will meet with the employer to voice these concerns.
We encourage people to not accept jobs without safety measures in place, but the reality is that there are people who are desperate to work and do not raise safety concerns out of fear of losing their job. We try to mitigate this through education and skills training.
Safety and Skills Training:
The Casual Labour Program offers training and skill enhancement free of charge for workers needing to be job ready. The program provides: employment counselling, job searches, resume writing, Construction Safety Training System (CSTS), H2S (Hydrogen Sulphide) Alive, Standard First Aid, and other job specific training. It also offers free lunches, boots, coveralls, gloves, and bus tickets when needed.
Casual Labour Success Story:
For three years, Steve relied on Bissell Centre’s Casual Labour Program to find daily, temporary work. The staff of our Employment Services Program saw that he had a strong work ethic, a drive to succeed, and was a reliable participant of the program. They were able to immediately engage with him and discuss setting career minded goals, including operating his own business.
Personal issues in Steve’s life started to take control and pull him away from the program. He was seen less and less on a daily basis and this was a cause of concern for staff.
Employment Services was able to enroll Steve into Bissell Centre’s Homeless to Homes (H2H) Program to get him housed in hopes of getting his life back on a track. With the support from H2H, Steve was able to have the space to address his personal issues, gain the life skills necessary to get control of his life, and restore his confidence. The road blocks that impeded his ability to be a successful participant with the Casual Labour Program were reduced.
Steve has since come back to Bissell Centre’s Program as a registered business owner of a successful roofing company that billed $20,000 in the first month of operation. Employment Services was able to provide him with referrals and encouragement to start his business and continues to support him with his success. The program refers casual labour staff to work for him, provides the resources to help with problems that may occur on the worksite, and offers guidance to his staff who might also be dealing with personal problems.
Casual Labour Statistics:
60 jobsite visits (2014)
14,000 casual labour placements (2014)
500 registered employers
$1M in the pockets of our workers
100 full time job placements
For more information about our Casual Labour Program, please visit our webpage here.
For media inquiries, please contact Darren Brennan, Marketing and Fund Development Associate, at 780.423.2285. ext. 129, dbrennan@bissellcentre.org.
