First United’s Golf for the Homeless Community tournament is a fundraising event benefitting the work of First United. This year’s goal is to raise $75,000 to support our Health and Healing programs.

You are invited to join us at University Golf Club for a fun and rewarding day of golfing with friends followed by an evening barbeque dinner and silent auction with emcee CBC’s Rick Cluff. The day starts at 1:00pm with a Shotgun start with teams of 4 playing a Texas Scramble.

Registration fee is $200 per person and includes:

• green fees & bucket of practice balls
• pull cart
• light lunch
• barbeque dinner
• silent auction
• charitable tax receipt (a portion of the registration fee)

To Register online, please click here.

First United would like to thank Mayor Gregor Robertson for his letter of support.
Please click here to see his kind words.

For more information, please contact:
Corinne at golf@firstunited.ca or call 604.681.8365 ext. 120.

For information on sponsorship or donating a silent auction item, please contact:
Kelly at knichol@firstunited.ca or call 604.681.8365 #119.

We warmly thank the sponsors & partners of the Golf for the Homeless Community tournament.

Dinner Sponsor

Hole Sponsors

Please click here for a sneak peak at some of the products and services available at the evening BBQ’s Silent Auction.

Following is a list of some of the items that will be available. Polish up on your bidding strategy and the best of luck to everyone attending. All proceeds from Golf for the Homeless Community benefit the work of First United.

Arc’teryx Jacket	Personal Training	A Round of Golf for 4
A Round of Golf for 4	tba	Admission Tickets
Bike Rentals	Dining Gift Card	Five-Hour Fishing Charter
tba	Superior Room for 2	A Round of Golf for 4
A Round of Golf for 4	Gift Basket + Gift Card	Behind the Scenes Encounter
tba

If you would like to donate a product or service to the silent auction, please contact Corinne at golf@firstunited.ca or call 604.681.8365 #120.

To sign up a team to play in the tournament, please click here to register.

This year, to acknowledge the gift volunteers bring to First United Church, we are organising a community gratitude day where staff, volunteers, & folks who visit & stay at the church will have an opportunity to share their thoughts & feedback about volunteers & volunteering.

The fruits of this event will be posted on a gratitude wall for all to see & enjoy.

At any given time here at First United, up to 200 folks are giving their time, talents & commitment to help us be a place of welcome & hospitality to the Downtown Eastside. None of us do what we do for the recognition, but we hope that by giving a voice to those who notice, love & appreciate the work our volunteers are doing, we will be strengthening the bonds that make us a community.

To learn more, contact Natalie Lanoville, Volunteer Coordinator, at nlanoville@firstunited.ca or 604-681-8365 x104.

National Volunteer Week is sponsored by Volunteer.ca and Investors Group. For more information on their initiatives, visit www.nationalvolunteerweek.ca

For over two years now, I have been working with tenant Sue Collard, who lives in aSurreyapartment building owned by the Sahotas, as she fights to get much-needed repairs to her chronically leaking building. We have been through three RTB hearings – in the spring of 2010, May 2011 and the autumn of 2011. These hearings involved the preparation of extensive photographic and affidavit evidence and detailed legal submissions. Sifting through building code requirements and engineering reports required substantial inputs of time. The spring 2010 and autumn 2011 hearings were each adjourned multiple times due to the complexity of the issues and the landlord’s tactics in responding to these applications.

We also went through the judicial review process in January 2011, challenging the RTB’s initial decision that it did not have the jurisdiction to order building-wide repairs. The judicial review decision[1] provides important clarification on the scope of the duty to maintain and repair contained in section 32 of the Residential Tenancy Act. 

In May 2011, we obtained an order from the RTB that the landlord contract with a Building Envelope Professional to obtain a comprehensive report on the building envelope. The report was to include an assessment and recommendations, and the recommendations were to be accompanied by specific time frames for repairs deemed necessary for reasons related to health and safety.

The landlord did not comply with this order. In August 2011, I wrote to the RTB and requested that they impose administrative penalties against the landlord pursuant to section 94.1 of the Residential Tenancy Act, for serious and repeated contravention of section 32 of the Act and for failure to comply with a decision or order of the Director. In September, the RTB advised us they would be opening an investigation.

Sue and I also went back to the RTB in September and October 2011 and obtained a further order that the landlord hire the Building Envelope Professional and make the necessary repairs. We also sought and obtained monetary compensation for the tenant and her family.

We are continuing to advocate for the landlord’s compliance with the orders we have obtained from the RTB.

Finding the time to do the detailed case-work required of this type of advocacy is a challenge. At First United we deal with a high volume of clients on a daily basis, most of whom are in immediate need and crisis regarding basic subsistence issues. Programs like ours have limited capacity to handle ongoing and complex cases, even though these cases can make a significant impact on policy and practice.

In all, this case has been exceptional in scope and duration and also in the incredible tenacity and perseverance shown by the tenant, who has lived in a leaking apartment building for over six years, and received four eviction notices when she first brought this issue before the RTB. I have not worked with anyone else like Sue in my three years as an advocate. In addition to all that we worked on together, Sue has become a member of ACORNCanada, and is working through ACORN to advocate forSurreyto adopt a Standards of Maintenance bylaw.

Kirsty MacKenzie

Community & Legal Advocate, First United Church

Click here to read the decision

We viewed wonderful images of spring, new life, and talked of hope. We are not a congregation of anywhere. We were not trying to be anything other than what we were that morning, for each other.

There is a busy life at First United full of service and program, activity and connection. Lots of routine, schedule, daily life cycle, sleeping, eating, grooming, playing. Plopped into the middle of all of it was Easter Sunday. Not a real fit. But very real.

Our chapel sits empty today. A month ago it contained 30 bunks. People have been housed and beds have disappeared. This space will now be animated, consecrated to new purposes and visions of who we are and would be. Sacred space. Healing space. Gathering space. We shape and are shaped. A community always in the making.

There is talk of dismantling the bus shelter in front of the Church, a favourite watering hole for the “illicit drinkers.”  Do we think this is good? Well, it “cleans up” the street. Can we invite those folks inside to drink something less damaging to their bodies? At this point, no. It’s not so good in this respect. In the future, there may be a managed alcohol program nearby to take the place of the bus shelter. Less harm for everyone.  Right now, this displacement may destabilize—all of us.

Most of the people who have used our shelter beds since January have done so for five nights or fewer. A much smaller core group has slept here almost every night. The ones who are most connected to us are the ones least connected to anything else in the social world. We are called to be here for those who lack social connectivity. Some call them marginalized. I prefer not to put “them” in a category, but to believe that the hope of Easter is the hope that is here for each person. It may not fit. But it connects.

- Stephen Gray, Acting Executive Director

We continue to:

•  Offer sleeping accommodation to 160 people nightly and others during the day
   
• Serve 800 – 1,000 meals per day
   
• Be a place where community can gather and be together with dignity and self-respect
   
• Supply daily necessities such as toiletries, personal hygiene products and showers
   
• Provide storage for shopping carts and belongings for over 200 homeless people per day
   
• Offer services ranging from foot care to emergency aid to pastoral care
   
• Be the mailing address for over 600 people to connect with family, job contacts and government services
    
• Engage with hundreds of community members monthly, creating care plans, providing counselling and making referrals
   
• Prepare over 3,000 tax returns per year for low income earners – more than any other similar service in BC
   
• Intake over 200 legal cases monthly in our poverty law advocacy program
   
• Work with the Carnegie Outreach Program, the City ofVancouverand BC Housing to get permanent housing for people who find shelter in the church
   
• AsVancouver’s largest shelter, offers a home to people with multiple barriers to permanent housing, employment and fuller inclusion in more mainstream society
   
• Welcome thrift shop donations for spring and summer

If you are a reasonably  avid news watcher, you’ll be aware that the court system in BC is in big trouble. Multiple news stories have highlighted the  serious problems with underfunding within BC’s court system. The Globe & Mail, for example, noted on February 22, 2012 that “B.C.’s justice system has been a regular fixture in the news in recent months. More than 100 cases were thrown out of court last year because of excessive delays, and thousands more remain in peril. Several lawyers and judges have blasted the province for underfunding the legal system.” Trial lawyers in BC, in an effort to bring attention to – and protest – this dire situation, have been  withdrawing duty counsel from court houses for several weeks, over the course of several months . (For the background to this withdrawal, see this press release http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/bc-lawyers-set-to-rally-simultaneously-in-several-locations-1591934.htm.) Numerous reviews and consultations are currently in process, to try to address this issue.

While the emphasis in these stories has been on the court system, there is another whole area of legal aid that has also been so underfunded that it effectively denies people access to justice. This is the area of law our advocates deal with; it is known as “administrative” law. It includes areas of law that are not generally dealt with inside the court system, or by standard law practices  – issues like welfare, housing, Employment Insurance, Old Age Security, etc.

 The legal problems individuals can face in these areas can be very complex, requiring significant expertise. Until 2002, Legal Services Society (legal aid) had a complete “poverty law “ section, with lawyers who dealt with housing, welfare, debt, EI and other issues. That was all lost when the BC Liberals came into power 10 years ago. Since that time, funding has been drastically reduced. Initially, Legal Services Society’s budget was cut by 40% over 3 years. Within the larger justice system, over the past 4 years, the budget summaries from the Ministry of the Attorney General show a 16% decrease.

In the area of administrative law, the government has saved money by cutting direct one-on-one representation, and offering individuals plenty of “pamphlet” law and online resources. Unfortunately, they have failed to take into account that ,among the low-income individuals most likely to need and access legal aid, the vast majority are not sufficiently literate to read and put into action the information provided to them. Acccording to the 1996 International Adult Literacy Survey (unfortunately, the most recent study that cites this particular statistic), in Canada, 80% of people at the lowest level of literacy and 60% of the people at Level 2 have an income of $27,000/year or less – in other words, the group of people most likely to qualified for legal aid are the least likely to be able to use the current model. Anecdotal evidence from the Justice Access Centre at Robson Square – where people can go to access self-help legal aid – suggests that the vast majority of clients at this self-help centre are low-income or moderate-income, but very well-educated, people – not functionally illiterate people.

The end result is that significant numbers of people in BC who need legal assistance – be it in the area of administrative, civil or criminal law – simply cannot access the help they need. Recently, the Coalition for Public Legal Services – of which First United Church is a member – sent  a letter to Premier Christy Clark, asking her to further clarify remarks she had made on the current funding of the justice system in BC. We urge you to read this letter, (link to letter)  as it contains important statistics and information about the failure of legal aid funding in BC. (And, of course, if you feel called to contact the Attorney General, we would be happy if you did so!

Here is her contact information:
Minister’s Office, Honourable Shirley Bond,
PO BOX 9053 STN PROV GOVT,
VICTORIA BC V8W 9E2  
Telephone: 250 356-7717
Fax: 250 356-8270
Email: pssgwebfeedback@gov.bc.ca)

- Susan Henry

Our life as a community, unlike traditional Faith Communities, is not centered on the familiar act of Sunday (or Saturday) worship.

TRADITIONAL WORSHIP SERVICES AS ENCOUNTER
The weekly service for most faith communities allows the members to come together as a community and to experience individually and collectively, the Gospel challenge that “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable” It provides the context in which personal need and circumstance might better encounter the Mystery many call God.

At First United, that which is traditionally termed “worship” is most deeply experienced and lived out in the activities of the community – in the sharing of a meal, in the sacramental act of washing and caring for someone’s damaged feet, in the exchange of a smile or a joke as our bonds of belonging to each other are strengthened.   In our moments of vulnerability, we encounter the sacred mystery that is within us and beyond us.

While our work is a ministry of the United Church of Canada, our worship is not denominational in style nor Christian in focus. Pausing to reflect and to give thanks for life is an important ritual whether we consider ourselves religious or not and it is one  marks our life together as a community.

OUR WEDNESDAY CELEBRATION
Many members of our community believe in a theistic God and deeply value being present at weekly religious services/ceremonies. Many others encounter God not as a theistic being but as the Sacred we see at a baby’s birth, at sunset, and when an old man shares an ice-cream with a child. While some members believe in Jesus and others might not, we all believe in the things Jesus believed in. “Worship” suggests adoration of a theistic God, while “Celebration” allows inclusivity for those who are theists and those who are not.

Each Wednesday night we gather for a Service of Celebration in which we actively seek to experience the Sacred  Space where we can be inspired, comforted and challenged. During that time, we mark rites of passage in our lives, share a meal together and spend time in reflection.  Our language is inclusive and we welcome the participation of those who have a particular faith tradition and those who do not, to be involved in our community.

The celebration / service starts at 7.00pm and ends at 8.30pm.  The evening includes live music and community participation.

DAILY REFLECTION

For those who wish to reflect on Christian faith, a daily time of worship is set aside in the Hall each weekday morning at 9:15 a.m.    Join us and the community for conversation and reflection.

SPIRITUAL SUPPORT

First United staff include clergy from the United Church of Canada, a rabbi, and a Hindu priest. Together with other community members deeply grounded in their personal faith, these men and women provide a pastoral presence for all who need support in a time of personal crisis (regardless of whether or not they share a common Faith) – assisting individuals to explore their own faith/beliefs and to find meaning, comfort and hope in the challenges they face.

PRAYER ROOM

Our members frequently use the Prayer Room for smudging, quiet reflection, prayer and meditation.

It contains a quilt made in honour of Dawn Amanda Bergman (known on the streets of Vancouver as a 46-year-old homeless woman named  Tracey) who personified the plight of Metro Vancouver’s homeless when she died on December 18, 2007 after a candle she was using to keep warm set her cart ablaze.

The quilt is made out of “yo-yos,” four-inch circles of fabric that are individually pulled together with thread to create smaller, puffier circles. Anna Keefer , a volunteer for several organizations that help women in need, was so touched by Bergman’s story that she and 100 other people from the Downtown Eastside and beyond made the quilt from more than 3,000 yo-yos — using material that came from a grandmother’s apron or a baby’s outfit or other well-loved clothes.

When the quilt was given to First United at a Wednesday Service, Anna said “There’s a universality about her story. It’s not just about Tracey. It’s about all other women. I wanted the quilt dedicated to Tracey, but I want it to be symbolic for all homeless people.

The reality of 100 people coming together to make a quilt in honour of Bergman is a perfect symbol for Vancouver residents of all stripes working together towards an end to homelessness. It helps create a sacred space where fear finds Peace, loneliness meets Belonging, where despair is met by Hope.

Training Sessions

Tuesdays @ 2:00 pm.

Meet in the Lobby at First United

(Rain or Shine)

Everyone is welcome and

no experience is necessary.

For more information  contact Corrine Dahlo at runwalk@firstunited.ca or call  604 – 681 – 8365,  Ext. 120
 

5th Annual—Golf for the Homeless Community Tournament

May 28th, 2012

University Golf Club

More information regarding the tournament and  purchasing tickets will be posted on our website in the near future.
www.firstunited.ca

 ************************

Last fall, several advocates in Vancouver, including four of us at First United, saw a rash of tenants who were suddenly facing rent increases in the order of almost 150%. Individuals who had been paying, say, $365/month for years and years were now suddenly being told that, as of January 1, 2012, their rent would be $845/month. None of them had incomes over approximately $1100/month, and most were living on $940/month or less. Needless to say, they were in a state of panic, as they were facing imminent homelessness.

What had happened?

The common denominator is that they had the same housing provider, an affordable housing society which like all affordable housing providers required that the tenants prove their eligibility for lower rent by providing financial information. In this case, various situations and problems arose which caused the housing society to declare these tenants as ineligible for subsidy.

“But isn’t an increase like this illegal under tenancy legislation?” you might ask. Yes and no. The Residential Tenancy Act does generally limit the amount of annual rent increases to a very modest rate (4.3% for 2012); landlords are required to get legal authorization from the Residential Tenancy Branch to increase rents beyond that rate.

However, there is a section of the legislation which exempts certain housing providers from the rent increase limit. The housing provider that was issuing the 150% rent increases alleged they fit under that section of the legislation. Essentially that section states:

Rental units operated by the following are exempt from [the section regarding rent increases] if the rent of the units is related to the tenant’s income:

 (g) any housing society or non-profit municipal housing corporation that has an agreement regarding the operation of residential property with the following:
(i)  the government of British Columbia;
(ii)  the British Columbia Housing Management Commission;
(iii)  the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

We did not agree that the tenants we saw lived in rental units that were exempt. Although the housing provider did have a couple of agreements with the British Columbia Housing Management Commission for a couple of buildings they owned (they own quite a number of buildings), there was no agreement for the buildings and hence rental units our clients lived in. In fact, the housing provider’s documents specifically stated there was “no government funding” for those buildings.

We appealed these increases to the Residential Tenancy Branch, arguing at dispute resolution hearings that the housing provider was not exempt under the legislation. The housing provider, at the hearings, offered no physical evidence of agreements pertinent to our client’s rental units which would thereby prove their exempt status, yet the Residential Tenancy Branch found in favour of the housing provider in all cases. We are currently working with a group of poverty law lawyers to take these decisions to judicial review.

It is, however, sad and disturbing to realize how quickly the stability of a low-income person can slip away, especially in cases where (as in the case of the tenants we saw) the individuals are ill and/or elderly. One of the tenants we saw has cancer, another a brain injury, another probable mental health issues, another a host of medical conditions that often plague older people.

We are aware that the people we saw were only a portion of the tenants who were issued such massive rent increases; what happened to the others who never tried to fight their case? We don’t know. Hopefully they did not join the invisible poor, who have been so touchingly documented by the Invisible TV Project. For a glimpse of how easy it is to fall into abject poverty, watch this poignant clip of 61-year-old Richard:

http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/2011/10/richard-homeless-healthcare-saskatoon-canada/

Susan Henry

Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery and the ministry staff at First United Church Mission have come to recognize that we hold very different understandings of how “Gospel Community” is best lived out. With changes in funding available to First United Church Mission for the work of sheltering people who are in need – something that First United Church Mission understands is a vital component to its ministry of refuge and building inclusive community; and with Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery’s desire for the safety and security of all people who live and work at First United Church Mission by ensuring compliance with civic authorities, many changes are taking place.

Recognizing that the direction of the ministry as intended by the Presbytery is quite different than what they have envisioned, and hoping for new possibilities of building an inclusive intentional community with those who are the most marginalized in our society, the Rev. Ric Matthews, Executive Minister; the Rev. Sandra Severs, Deputy Executive Minister; and Gillian Rhodes, Director of Operations; initiated conversation about a separating of the ways. Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011 agreed to this as a constructive way forward that would best serve the interests and visions of all concerned. Both parties recognize the validity and worth of the emphases of the other and look forward to nurturing supportive and healthy relationships. It is the Presbytery’s hope and prayer that Ric, Sandra and Gillian will be able to find ways of living out the reality they believe needs to come into being in the world.

The ministry of First United Church Mission will also continue, in the midst of these changes. With the support of BC Housing, the provision of shelter will continue through to March 31, 2012. The work of advocacy and the work of serving the Downtown Eastside community will continue.

Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery will be working with the Board, the staff, the community at First United Church Mission, and the community in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver as the ministry of First United Church Mission transitions into its next stage of life.

 - 30 -

Media Contact:         Dal McCrindle – Chairperson, Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery
Cheryl Prior – Executive Assistant, First United –   Phone: 604.681.8365 –  Ext 118

Just what are the implications of the Record Suspension provisions of the Omnibus Crime Bill that has now passed the House of Commons and gone to the Senate for “sober second thought”? Well, here is one of them.

You are a convention refugee from a war-torn country who comes to Canada as a youth. When you arrive, you are totally alone with no support, no one to help you understand your new home, and how the system works. As a result, as is to be expected, you miss the 180 day window within which you can relatively easily apply for and obtain permanent residence status. Now, if you want to become a resident you will have to apply on what is known as humanitarian and compassionate grounds. A so-called H and C application process is much more complicated and lengthy.

Your grasp of English is shaky. You can speak not badly but have no literacy skills. You don’t know anything about applying for a work permit, so the only employment you can get is under the table for very low pay with unreliable employers. You resort to welfare but that is hardly adequate to put a reasonable roof over your head. You quickly gravitate to the place in town where it’s easiest to survive in squalid rooms in slumlord hotels that charge not too much more than the welfare rates, and where there is plenty of free food, and drugs to kill the pain of your dislocation and misery.

It’s not long before you are dealing a little on the side, to cover the costs of your new addiction and put some change in your pocket for longer than three days after welfare day. And of course you are easy pickings for the undercover cops who deftly infiltrate the open drug scene of the Downtown Eastside. Before you have been in the country more than eighteen months you have a couple of charges: assault, and trafficking. Only the second one sticks. You do your time and a year’s probation during which you have a couple more brushes with the law but nothing that ends up in conviction. You are lucky.

You start to hang out at the Church and you meet some people who give you a sense that you may possibly find your way in this new country to a much happier place. It wasn’t like this for you in your homeland before it was beset with internal turmoil and warfare. Your family was warm, supportive and loving, and they were able to provide a sound foundation for you, some of which is still intact.

An advocate at the Church tells you about applying for a work permit, and you begin helping there on a volunteer basis. You start to work out at the gym and look after your body. It isn’t that hard to detox and though you have a couple of relapses, you generally manage to stay clear of the drugs and the law. A new relationship helps give you something to live for, and when your work permit comes the Church hires you on part-time and you start to take some English classes.

Your path to recovery isn’t always straight and easy. You find school tough and the relationship doesn’t last. Most of your friends are still into drugs and so the loneliness gets to you. But you persist. You dare to think that you might even have a future in this country. You get into sports and have some really good success. You start to dream.

But what kind of future will you have as a perennial refugee? You begin to talk to the Church people about becoming a citizen. But they explain that you first need to become a permanent resident. And to do that, the first thing you need to do, even to have a hope of succeeding on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, is to get a pardon. It doesn’t sound like too big a deal, to get pardoned, since you hardly feel that you were ever much of a criminal.

Unfortunately, even though your conviction seems to be for such a minor offence, dealing a little piece of rock to the wrong customer, it bears that terrible word “indictable.” And that means you have to wait not just three years after the sentence, as with summary convictions, but five whole years. And not just five years after your jail term; five years after the expiry of your entire sentence including the year of probation.

So by the time you find out about this whole pardon thing, you still have four years to go. Four long hard years of keeping yourself on track, keeping your work permit current, trying to stay off welfare, because they say your H and C application will go a whole lot smoother if you show you are being a “productive” member of society. So you stick with it and it isn’t easy. You’re impatient. Time passes slowly. You keep asking your advocate to check and make sure that it is really five and not three years. And if it is five, maybe you can apply after four since it will take about a year to get the pardon application decided on. But no, you can’t even submit it until you are five year’s clear.

It sure does one thing for you though. It makes you very certain that the last thing in the world you are going to do is pick up another conviction while you are waiting. So you try to put it in the back of your mind and get on with your life as best you can. You get involved with someone else, and this time it turns out more serious, and before too long you are expecting a child. You start working a couple of jobs, and find a decent place to live outside of the ‘hood.

Time does, of course eventually pass, and the magic moment comes when you can finally apply for your pardon, after an interminable wait for your criminal record to be sent from Ottawa. By the time you get the application in, it is five years and seven months since the end of your probation. And then you start the wait for the Parole Board of Canada to grind your application through its bureaucracy. Another eleven months pass and it finally comes. It actually comes! Yes, you are pardoned. You can start your new life officially—almost. Once of course you have convinced Citizenship and Immigration Canada to grant you permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

You can’t believe how long and complicated the process is just putting together the application, even with professional help. Letters of reference, a medical exam, remembering everywhere you ever lived in Canada, showing proof of how well you have integrated into society and on and on. You keep worrying if you have enough. Have you proved yourself worthy? At the very least you have your important Pardon certificate which takes pride of place in your batch of documents. And then another wait. This time almost two years by the time the letter comes. Eight and a half years after you have completed your sentence, you are finally a permanent resident of Canada and on your way to becoming a citizen, with a passport, and the right to travel as freely as anyone to the place where some remnants of your family might still be found.

It isn’t very long after that letter comes in the mail that you start hearing in the news that the government wants to make your community and streets safer by forcing people like you to wait not five but ten years to apply for a pardon. You actually begin to feel lucky. You remember how hard it had been to keep up your hopes when you realized you had four long years ahead of you just to apply. It was like another sentence itself. A kind of social jail that kept you separate and apart from normal Canadian people.

You wonder if you could have kept going had you been faced with a ten year wait. How much more tempting it would have been just to go back to the street and to the drugs; to give up on having any kind of a life that your family would be proud of you for; to give in to a system that seems to believe way more in punishment than compassion. You are very grateful that you have met people along the way that have cared. But you really wonder if even caring people will really matter anymore against a system that just seems to want to keep people like you down, forever.

Stephen Gray

Hours for drop off are:

Monday to Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (these hours are determined by parking limitations on Hastings Street). Please call ahead to arrange for a drop-off at an appointed time.

All donations will be gratefully received through the front door of the store on Hastings. There is a drop off zone marked on Hastings and a sign on the sidewalk.

Thank you for your kindness!

The letter focuses largely on the legacy of residential schools, mass adoptions, and the already disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in prison. It calls for the retention of conditional sentencing which allows for consideration of the individual offender’s background and life circumstances. Minimum sentences will simply put more and more Aboriginal people in jail for longer periods of time with greater risk of recidivism.

Now the Omnibus Crime Bill, as it is known, is a complex piece of legislation which I will attempt to provide further commentary on in future entries. My purpose here is to link this issue and the concerns raised by the United Church to an event that occurred at First United the day after this letter was sent.

On November 24, renowned physician, activist and writer, Dr Gabor Maté spoke to a packed meeting of First United staff, representatives from other Downtown Eastside organizations and members of the wider community. His topic was “Taming the Hungry Ghost: Combining Compassion and Science in Healing Addiction.” Dr Maté repeated his mantra that the question we need to ask is not Why the addiction? but Why the pain? He talked about the high correlation between adverse childhood experience, including sexual abuse, and incomplete brain development leading to addiction later in life. He led us through some exercises with a couple of individuals in the audience to demonstrate how important it is for care givers to be emotionally present and attuned to the people they are engaged with, including an awareness of the individual’s past trauma and present pain. He talked about how the adult human brain, with the help of this kind of compassionate intervention, has an amazing capacity to continue to develop new circuitry and essentially heal itself from the ravages of early adverse experience and incomplete development in a way that alleviates some of the pressure to use substances to feel emotionally whole and human.

So what is the relationship of all of this to the Omnibus Crime Bill and the United Church of Canada’s specific focus on its potential impact on aboriginal people? Dr Maté did not speak, on November 24, about his recent therapeutic work with the Peruvian psychotropic plant-based tea, Ayahuasca, partly because on November 7th Health Canada ordered him to stop his involvement with this substance or face criminal prosecution. The November 10th edition of the Nature of Things hosted by Dr David Suzuki, aired “The Jungle Prescription,” a documentary by Mark Ellam of Dr Maté’s foray into the Amazonian jungle to learn about the ritual use of Ayahuasca first hand, in order to bring this treatment back to Canada. (The program is available on the Nature of Things website.) On his return to Canada, Maté began the ritual and supervised use of Ayahuasca tea in therapy groups to the significant benefit of individual participants. Ayahuasca, which means “vine of the souls”, apparently unlocks emotional memory, often painful memory, and enables the conscious part of the brain to override deeply-rooted patterns of behavior. The ritual and supervised use of the tea revives in the memory situations of trauma and pain but with the capacity to change the way the brain has integrated these experiences. There is immense potential for people addicted to drugs to begin to heal from the underlying causes and experiences in which their addictive behavior is rooted.

However, some of the compounds found in the tea, if isolated, are considered illegal under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). At the time Dr Maté was speaking at First United, he had just received, thanks to Health Canada, a much needed but not welcome holiday from his hectic schedule as he had to cancel a therapy session with a First Nations group in which Ayahuasca was to be used.

A most moving section of “The Jungle Prescription” comes at the very end where an aboriginal woman, Cynthia, speaks of her experience with the Ayahuasca ritual. She had had numerous male abusers as a child. The memory that came up for her was a very clear picture of herself running down the street after her mother, who was leaving her alone to go off to the bar, and begging her not to leave. She was four. To the group she says that she had a hard time understanding how someone who loves you so much can take so much innocence from you. Cynthia tells Maté in the aftermath of the Ayahuasca experience that the pain in her chest is gone. “What is there instead?” he asks. She replies, “Relief.”

The War on Drugs mentality which characterizes federal government approach to harm reduction practices such as those at Insite, and which is embedded in aspects of Bill C-10, is also at work in Health Canada’s intervention in Dr Maté’s efforts to provide his patients with the healing benefits of Ayahuasca. In the latter case, this mentality is present in two respects: first, the refusal to allow technically illegal substances to be used as part of a healing regime; and secondly, in the implicit message, when taken together with the Omnibus Crime Bill, that punishment is more effective than compassion in the creation of safe streets and communities.

Stephen Gray

Issue number one is about the fact that Minister Coleman and Mayor Robertson have been quoted as saying that around 30% of those at First United have housing that is being paid for elsewhere. There are a number of things that need to be said in response to this:
1. The number has been inflated. I would like to see the evidence for those numbers. Surveys done by staff from the City and Province over past weeks have reflected around 17%, not 30%. And I am not sure why this number is so significantly different?
2. BC Housing is NOT paying twice for people. Despite the spin that is put on the funding contracts, BC Housing is not paying twice for anyone at First United. Minister Coleman has consistently announced that Heat Shelters cost around $100 per person per night. At that rate, BC Housing has until March of this year, paid less than a quarter of the cost for the 240 people at First United. And at those rates, BC Housing has since March this year, funded less than half the cost for 240 people. Of the 240 people, the statistics indicate that around 40 people have other housing that is also being paid for. Those 40 people are easily accounted for amongst the 130 people who are currently funded not by BC Housing but by our own donors.
3. There are genuine reasons for why people don’t use the housing allocated to them. It is convenient to point fingers at First United. It is easy to demand we simply send folk who have housing paid for elsewhere back onto the streets. It is also very naive. People who are not staying in the housing provided for them, have real reasons for doing that. Some housing units are too cockroach and lice infested; some are surrounded by neighbouring tenants deep into their addiction and/or mental illness such that people find First United a safer and less tempting place to be; some are just too lonely and frightening for people who are ravaged by anxiety or other demons and are terrified of being alone; some housing units are enmeshed in scams where third parties make money out of complex sub-letting. We all agree that the state should not pay twice for housing for somebody. But the real challenge lies in addressing the reason for why the housing is not ‘working’, not in ensuring they don’t have anywhere else to be. Refusing people entry does not result in them being back in the inappropriate housing that has been paid for. It puts them onto the streets.
4. Including people inside First United ensures we can address the real issues. Excluding people, ensures there is no relationship in which we can explore and address the reasons for why people are not staying in the housing that has been provided. Without the contact and in the absence of the housing providers addressing the issue, these folk are simply pushed into the streets and shadows.
5. The Housing Providers need to address why folk are not staying in their units, not put the blame on First United. The most significant aspect of all this is that the real responsibility for dealing with this issue lies with the Housing Provider, not First United. The housing provider should surely know if people are not using the housing allocated to them. And the housing provider should address the reasons for that, not simply demand that others should not accommodate them.
6. First United does not lure people out of their housing. It is ridiculous to suggest people are being lured out of their adequate and appropriate housing by the attractiveness of staying First United. One does not have to sleep at First United to enjoy the food, the welcoming hospitality, the sense of belonging, or the acceptance of all regardless of social circumstance. You cannot describe First United as scary, dangerous, unsafe and “loosely managed” and then also say it entices people away from their housing.

Issue number two relates to the increasingly common claim that First United should exclude those who simply want to be there, but don’t really need to be there. This is a bogus distinction, based on a superficial understanding of the deep need people have for belonging (and the terror many have of being alone). If housing does not provide a genuine home, people need to find other places where they feel at home. This need is not an easily dismissed “nice to have”. It is a very deep authentic human need. Leaders from the Province, City and Police have disparagingly said people are going to First United because of the sense of community they find there – or more crudely, because it’s a “party place”. We will never break the endless cycle of chronic homelessness, if we glibly dismiss the reason as a ‘want’ rather than a ‘need’. The need is about a desperate longing of chronically homeless people for:
• Feeling accepted and validated rather than merely tolerated,
• Knowing they truly belong to and are part of a wider circle,
• Restoring what is broken in their sense of connection with self, family, friends and society.

We can build as many new housing units as we like but the people we put in them need to feel at home with sufficient and appropriate support 24 hours a day. Without that, they will continue to cycle through the system. The folk who are chronically homeless are typically the most traumatised, troubled and vulnerable people in our society. The fact that First United is “too welcoming and accepting” is not the problem. The problem is that too often these basic needs are not being met in the housing that has been provided.

The Province, City and Police have responded to the above concerns by calling for increased screening at First United. The screening is intended to help exclude those who have housing elsewhere and those who ‘want’ rather than ‘need’ to be at First United. This flies in the face of all the points made above. It assumes that housing is the solution to chronic or street homelessness. Housing is indeed a prerequisite for “solving” homelessness. But it is not sufficient. Homelessness is ultimately not about having a house but about having a home. If we do not get the difference, we will not end homelessness.

These two above-mentioned issues are windows into a very basic error being made by many who are presently the most critical of us. First United Church is not and never has been a Shelter. We were previously and still remain a place of refuge. When we were asked to open our doors 24/7 some three years ago, we agreed to extend what we were then doing Monday to Friday 8 hours a day. At that point we were offering folk a place to be where it was safer, warmer, drier and more caring than the streets. We agreed to extend the hours so as to provide a 24/7 refuge from the streets for those who had nowhere else to go. It seems that staff from the City and BC Housing are dismissive of the term “refuge”. But whether we like it or not, the fact is that we need a point along the housing continuum between the street and the formal Shelters. And we need a place where people who are excluded from Formal Shelters can be welcomed, cared for and engaged with. That is who and what we were before we opened our doors 24/7. That is who and what we still are.

I said at the outset that the real problem lies with the City and Province. We all want to break the cycle of chronic homelessness, stop failing deeply vulnerable people, and stop wasting inordinate sums of taxpayer money. The only way to do that is to commit seriously to an integrated and comprehensive approach to these issues. Simply doing more of the same with greater determination and within the same old government department silos, will not produce the change we need. We need the political will to move beyond traditional regulations and best practices. We need a sincere commitment to find new and effective strategies via collective wisdom. We can only do this by sitting together around one table, doing the shared analysis together, working together to develop creative out- of- the- box strategies, collectively allocating resources and together implementing daring new initiatives. Only the political leaders at Provincial and City level have the authority and resources to finally get all the parties into one room. Only they can ensure the parties are committed and empowered to deliver what has been agreed. We have had enough talking, and enough posturing. We have had enough of doing more of the same over and over again. It’s not about numbers and statistics and regulations. Ultimately it’s about people: real people in very real pain. We need something different. We need it from the Leaders in the City and Province. And we need it now.

The City of Vancouver has ordered the Church to comply with a maximum occupant load of 240 people. This is despite the fact that the number of people seeking shelter at First United has consistently exceeded that number and that there are no places to go to for those that are turned away.

As from 4pm yesterday (November 30) the Church will be ensuring strict compliance with a maximum occupant load of 240.

In the past 4 winters, the Church with the full awareness of the authorities did not turn anyone away. In recent months extensive efforts were made by the Church in consultation with the City, Police and Province, to reduce the number within the building while avoiding putting folk back on the streets.

Before the Olympics we were urged to bring people in from the streets and we were able to accommodate as many as 300 people with the full awareness of the authorities. Now we are being told to put people out onto the streets when we all know there is nowhere for them to go.

Until yesterday, the Church only exceeded the occupant load after it had carefully ensured there were no other shelter beds available. Now, while the Church remains deeply concerned that this will immediately force people back onto the streets, it will comply fully with this order.

The real issue is not about occupant load, it’s about what the City and Province are going to do tonight to care for those who have nowhere to go.

Until we have a better alternative, we need to carefully assess the impact that rigid adherence to regulations has on the real lives of real people. The City’s order is essentially saying people will be safer on the streets. But when we lock people out so as to limit risk and to provide greater safety for the majority, we are putting the most troubled and vulnerable people back onto the streets in order to protect OUR liability. At the moment all the energy is going into getting people out of our building, rather than addressing the factors that bring them to our doors. In the end, the people who pay the price for our fear of liability and our inability to provide other options, are the people who are most helpless. Triage always costs real people real lives.

The people we turn away are people we know and care about. They are family. I would like those who impose these regulations to stand next to our staff at 2am and look in the eyes of a family member and say “sorry I know you have nowhere else to go, and you may even die out there tonight, and I know you see a half empty gym behind me, but we have reached our occupant load and you can’t come in”

Our collective risk of liability has been addressed – The deep need of immensely vulnerable people has not. That is the issue that we all have to acknowledge and deal with.

Visitors to Vancouver frequently take a drive into the surrounding countryside. They are typically bemused by the signs directing them to Hope (50km to hope, Turn right to Hope, etc).

The theme of hope is of course a very current one! Barak Obama reached the Whitehouse because of a movement south of our border propelled by hope. The Gospel reminds us of the Hope revealed in the stable and the Hope offered in the empty tomb. Finding hope for the challenges of the Downtown Eastside daily occupies the attention of our local newspapers. We are all pretty keen on hope – and at the same time probably have some very different ideas as to what ‘hope’ actually looks like and feels like.

For some people, drowning in their personal circumstances, frustrated by lack of resources and overwhelmed by a deep sense of powerlessness, hope is an empty and foreign concept. For them it is at best a distant aspiration, a beguiling promise never to be realised. Hope seems to be an experience and companion for those at the centre of society, denied to those who are defined as being on the margins. It becomes a bankrupt promise, a cynical tormentor that contemptuously reminds you that you are an ‘outsider’.

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Hope: A Destination?
Mark spends 5 days a week at First United. But in his binge periods of total submission to crack cocaine, Mark knows the desolation of being haunted by the ghostly presence of a hope that has ethereal presence but is bereft of any substance. Simon who so often sits beside Mark, has his own need for hope. He is confounded by the inner voices that drive him in multiple directions. He desperately tries to discern the voice of the Spirit in the midst of his confusion. And despite the clamour in his head, Simon senses only a deafening silence and a devastating emptiness when he reaches despairingly for hope. Simon and Mark have frequently said quite simply, “There is no hope”

Confronted by their despair, some caring people hurry forward to point Mark and Simon to the signs along the road that suggest otherwise. They urge people like Mark and Simon to see the perhaps faint but yet unmistakable signs of light that suggest alternative options at the end of the tunnel. Sadly, despite these well-intentioned efforts, Mark and Simon still see only a destination: a place to which they may one day get. They hear “keep going and you will get there”. They see signs that say “go this way”, “slow down”, “speed up”, “only a little way further”. But Hope remains a promised tomorrow: always ‘then’ and never ‘now’. It is a destination that beckons and taunts.

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Hope: A Starting Point?
The good news for Michael (another very active member of the community at First United) is that he has actually touched and embraced hope. He struggled for many years with a deep sense of inadequacy and has carried crippling guilt for being an “abject failure” (his words). Today Michael has new perspectives on his past life, a conviction that he can be more fully alive and can give himself the right to be free to be who he is. And yet Michael struggles daily with the reality and power of what he calls “the dark side”’ or “evil”. He tells how every day (and every moment) is an ongoing battle with the internal and external things that pull him in such different directions. Hope became for Michael not only a destination at which he arrived, but a place from which he moved forward. The hope for a new way of life became a springboard, a starting point for new effort and energy. But that was also all that it was, a beginning point and nothing more. In that sense hope becomes a launch pad into what can still be a scary, uncertain and threatening future: “hope” is the impetus that rapidly recedes into the past as you struggle with the present.

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Hope: A Journey!
First United Church has increasingly become a community in which we have all discovered that in its truest form, hope is essentially a journey: a process of self discovery. It is an interactive, moment by moment shared experience of life. The Christian Faith tells us that Hope (whether expressed in the Incarnated Baby in the stable or the Crucified and Resurrected Christ) stands at the centre of the intersection between being Christ for others and meeting Christ in others. Hope lives and breathes and has its being in the Body of which we are all a part. Hope is far more accurately understood as an unfolding relationship lived in every sequential moment than it is as either a destination or starting point. Hope is a companion that gives life. Hope becomes real, engages fully in the present moment and fills the void when we are hope for one another.

Rebecca discovered that truth when she could no longer ignore the relentless love of her parents and home community. Despite the overwhelming power of the attractions (and escape) of the downtown eastside – a lure that over many years had torn her again and again from the reach of her parents and friends – Rebecca finally found a new beginning and gave birth to a daughter (who she named Journey), surrounded by the family and friends who had always loved her and been her hope moment by moment. She lives today within that community, being hope for others as they have been (and continue to be) hope for her.

Simon, Mark, Michael, Rebecca and many others at First United Church day by day live the truth that we are a community of hope. We are a community because of hope. We are hope because we are a community.

Scott Bernstein analyzed the Insite decision. The germ of the decision is that the federal Minister of Health’s use of ministerial discretion to refuse an extension to the Insite exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) was seen to be arbitrary and grossly disproportionate considering the public good, and thus not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. This Court decision based on Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms strikes a balance between public safety and public health and has good implications for future applications for supervised injection sites. Where there is compelling evidence of the public health benefit then the minister should grant an exemption. (More on this below).

Damon Barrett looked at the significance of Insite and the Supreme Court decision from the high level of international policy. He spoke about the influence at that level of the International Narcotics Control Board. Since I did not know anything about that body before going to this talk, I looked up the INCB and this is a little bit of what I found:

Mandate and Functions

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the independent and quasi-judicial monitoring body for the implementation of the United Nations international drug control conventions. It was established in 1968 in accordance with the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961.  It had predecessors under the former drug control treaties as far back as the time of the League of Nations.

Functions

The functions of INCB are laid down in the following treaties:  the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961; the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971; and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988

Broadly speaking, INCB deals with the following:

1. As regards the licit manufacture of, trade in and use of drugs, INCB endeavours, in cooperation with Governments, to ensure that adequate supplies of drugs are available for medical and scientific uses and that the diversion of drugs from licit sources to illicit channels does not occur. INCB also monitors Governments’ control over chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of drugs and assists them in preventing the diversion of those chemicals into the illicit traffic;
2. As regards the illicit manufacture of, trafficking in and use of drugs, INCB identifies weaknesses in national and international control systems and contributes to correcting such situations. INCB is also responsible for assessing chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of drugs, in order to determine whether they should be placed under international control.

The INCB which seems to have great influence over UN and international drug policy is opposed to supervised injection sites on the grounds that they violate the international drug conventions named above. Damon Barrett predicts that in March 2012 the United Nations will condemn the Insite decision in line with the thinking of the INCB.

Damon articulated two fundamental principles with respect to harm reduction that should be defended at the national and community levels: the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and the right to benefit from scientific progress. He noted that under the Obama administration the United States has shifted its stance to one much more supportive of harm reduction measures, though Obama himself steers away from using the term. He noted that Russia was now the leading international opponent of harm reduction strategies. And he noted that Russia wields very broad influence in this regard on the world scene.

In general the message from this day’s talk was that change must come from the bottom up. It is not likely to emerge at the international level, or the national level in the case of Canada. The current federal government prefers to base public policy around drugs on popular opinion rather than on solid evidence. The move to increase mandatory minimum sentences is an example of this. Insite is a small but significant judicial window that says evidence counts.

In reading the Supreme Court decision on Insite with a layperson’s eyes, and listening to these two speakers, I have come up with the following understanding. The application to the Supreme Court by Portland Hotel Society, two individual users of Insite and VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users) was based on three alternatives: that the provincial government’s jurisdiction over health care (including Insite) is protected by the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity from the implementation of the possession section 4(1) of the federal CDSA; or, that the provisions of the CDSA with respect to possession of drugs at Insite was a violation of section 7 rights of the Charter which concerns the right to life, liberty and the security of the person; or finally, that the Minister’s decision to deny the extension of the Insite exemption to Section 4(1) of the CDSA regarding possession of drugs violated the claimants’ section 7 rights. (VANDU also unsuccessfully sought a declaration that the offence of possession anywhere violates section 7 of the charter.)

The claimants lost on the first two grounds, but had their claim upheld on the third ground. With respect to the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity, the Court based its decision on an interpretation of the Canadian constitution which I do not pretend to understand fully. But simply put, the Court found that the doctrine was neither necessary nor helpful in resolving the dispute over Insite between the provincial and federal governments. With respect to the second ground, the Court found that while the prohibition on possession of the CDSA did limit the section 7 interests of the claimants, it did so in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. This is so, reasoned the Court, since the Act contains, in addition to Section 4(1) on the prohibition on possession of illegal drugs, the provision in Section 56 that empowers the Minister to grant exemptions to health service providers like Insite.

The Court then turned its attention to the third ground—the denial of the exemption as a Charter violation. The Supreme Court ruled that the effect of the Minister’s decision to deny a further exemption would have been “to prevent injection drug users from accessing health services offered by Insite, threatening the health and indeed the lives of the potential clients.” Further, the Court ruled that the Minister’s refusal to grant Insite an exemption, as mentioned above, was “not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” The remedy of the Court was to order the Minister to grant an exemption under section 56 of the CDSA.

The interesting part of the decision for future applicants for exemptions is the following guideline that appears in the decision: “Where the Minister is considering an application for an exemption for a supervised injection facility, he or she will aim to strike the appropriate balance between achieving public health and public safety goals. Where, as here, the evidence indicates that a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption.”

Apparently there are groups in several Canadian cities currently in the process of preparing for applications to enable the setting up of supervised injection sites similar to the one in Vancouver. At the present time, only eight countries across the world have such facilities, although Germany apparently has 28 of them.

Stephen Gray