Home Makeover

By: Hannah Kim

On Friday July 10, 2009, Jackie and I had the opportunity to present our Homeless Sponsorship idea to the Tri-Cities Homelessness Task Group at the Coquitlam City Hall. As a reminder, the Homeless Sponsorship idea is centred on model of using a giving circle of socially conscious investors to buy a housing unit and then rent it to 2 – 3 homeless clients while providing support services to these clients with the help of outreach workers and volunteers (see previous post, “A Flowchart to Visualize Our Idea”).

After the presentation, feedback on our novel solution included a great suggestion from a prominent local businessman (who is also a board member on the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce): in addition to foreclosures, look for properties that are in need of repair when finding housing! Such properties would be less expensive for the giving circles to purchase. Once the property is purchased, we can look to support from the local business community in the form of services and materials donations for the repair and refurbishing. This process adds value to the property for the giving circle members, which is another incentive for these investors. Further, if we are able to garner support from the same local businesses in refurbishing and repairing housing units on a yearly basis after a given group of homeless clients move out, investors would have even more reason to participate in our Homeless Sponsorship idea.

Meeting with Homless Advocates

By: Ryan

This was a meeting attempting to teach people how best to help the homeless population. Mayor Gregor Robertson started the meeting off with an opening speech claiming that he wants to end homelessness by 2015 in Vancouver. He admitted this was a very ambitious goal but it was one that he wants to strive for.

Sue Noga then took the podium and discussed homeless action week which is taking place on October 11 – 17 in which affordable housing is the main theme this year. The discussions then revolved around how to set up your own event to raise awareness and help the homeless.

Many people are currently finding ways to better provide ID to the homeless as this can be a major barrier that they have to overcome. Some people were also organizing events that provided a repair service for bikes and wheelchairs.

If you want to organize an event to help the homeless the number one tip they had was to never give up! Another thing to remember is that people who are already well involved with the homeless are always willing to help so make sure you contact people who are already experienced in the field.

Gregor Robertson

A Outreach Worker’s Perspective

By: John Gill

Our meeting with Sue an outreach worker with 20 plus years experience has provided us with a number of key insights. Sue mentioned that the Tri-Cities is Very limited when it comes to services and resources as compared to the downtown eastside. She was happy with our novel solution and provided valuable feedback on our proposed ideas.

One key insight sue provided is that there is a recent trend towards more families and employed individuals are ending up in shelters because the wages they receive is not keeping up with cost of living. These hard-working individuals rely on the streets as they cannot afford the rental payments on their own. Her first hand account provided us with assurance that there is a segment of the homeless that are employed and are suffering due to the current economic conditions. It was extremely saddening to hear that families with young children involved had to scour shelter to shelter just to find a place to sleep.

The key aspect she suggests is to get the community involved in our model. For example, businesses could employ homeless individuals to clean up around the parking lot or other tasks. The benefit of this is that it involves re-integrating these individuals in the community and providing them with the necessary support.

Another approach is the community and business individuals could help out with services, such as painting, landscaping and general renovation for landlord’s homes. This would provide an incentive to landlords to rent to the homeless, as we will take care of all the contracting and spruce up their homes free of charge.  This obviously would require community members and business professionals to donate services to help out with this cause.

Other community members could help out by offering support services such as life skills like cooking, cleaning , banking, library and recreation membership assistance or they could provide companionships and mentorship to the homeless as often they like anyone else would like someone to listen to them. The wonderful aspect of this is that once these individuals succeed they could in return become peer mentors to other homeless individuals. Thereby creating a positive cycle that helps others.

The meeting with Sue was definitely productive as it raised various questions and made our group realize and explore different options as well. Having a chance to meet with her and get a professional’s view/analysis was a positive experience for our group. It allowed us to further define and develop our mode and solution.

A Church’s Perspective

By: Jackie Go

This week I talked to the head pastors of a church in Coquitlam. I proposed our idea to them in order to get feedback from a church’s perspective. This church is heavily involved in missions work and was one of the host church’s for the Cold Wet Weather Mat Program, which is a temporary shelter program which runs in the winter months. Overall the church was receptive to our idea. They asked some good questions, which helped us develop the solution to the stage which it is at today.

Some of the key issues which the church brought up were:

• Client Selection – how we pick the client, and the public scrutiny that goes into deciding who to sponsor.
• Success rate – how to ensure that the client can be self-sustained within 6-12 months. Our client selection process relies heavily on the expertise of homeless advocates and outreach workers who know the clients on a personal basis. I will be contacting the outreach workers this week and ask them if they can find a few potential clients whom they feel would be a good fit for our program. Finding the homeless person who is committed to getting out of homelessness and has a high potential to get out of homelessness when given a home for 6-12 months will be essential for the success of this program.
• Living costs –we recognize that housing is not the only thing which a client will need in order to get out of homelessness. They also need food, clothing, and other life essentials. Our idea is based on a homeless sponsorship and we would like to get the whole community involved with this. The community, which includes citizens and local businesses, will be asked to provide for the living costs – including the donation of life essentials such as food, clothing, and furniture.

A Real Estate Agent’s Perspective

By: Jackie Go

This week I met with a real estate agent from Coquitlam who has been working in the real estate industry for over 20 years. I presented our homeless sponsorship idea to him and asked him for his feedback from a realtor’s perspective. We had a lengthy discussion about the real estate industry and I would like to share some of the key concepts he wanted to contribute to our idea.

• Foreclosures – this represents a great opportunity to obtain cheaper property. With the economic downturn, the number of foreclosures is increasing, and these are properties which can be bought very cheap. We will be looking for foreclosures that we can buy cheaply for the investment giving circle, or that need repairs. If the property needs repairs, we can ask local businesses and volunteers to donate their services (painting, renovations, etc.) in order to add value to the property in that way.
• Land – he emphasized heavily that in the real estate industry, this is what has value and continues to appreciate, despite decreasing prices for buildings.
• Economic Feasibility – he emphasized that housing each homeless client in a separate unit would be very costly. In comparison, if we were to buy a unit with 3 bedrooms and house 3 clients there, the costs per person go down a lot. Furthermore, he pointed out that the homeless clients that we are trying to help have low barriers and we can look at helping those who are capable of living with companions. From talking with a homeless person myself, Sally (pseudonym from Hannah’s “Eye-opener” post) she mentioned how hard it is to get out of homelessness due to the fact that the client is essentially leaving their entire life behind, including their circle of friends. Therefore living together with 1 or 2 other people going through the same thing can help the client form a community of support in order to successfully get out of homelessness.
• Rental Units – he emphasized the difficulty of getting a landlord to rent to a homeless person. Potential renters have to fill out forms asking questions such as their previous address, their current job and other similar information which would be difficult for a homeless person to provide. Essentially renting to a homeless person would be more risky for the landlord compared to other tenants who have a job and a previous address. However, as we will discuss in other posts, we don’t want to rule out the rental model for funding the housing because this would require a lower investment from donors compared to the model which buys the property in order to generate a property investment. We will keep in contact with the realtor to see if we can find a landlord who would be willing to rent to a homeless person, or if we can find other people who may have empty basement suites. Please let us know if you might know of a philanthropic landlord or property owner who would be interested in helping the homeless, while also getting a steady flow of rent.

Eye-Opener on Social Innovation Process

By: Hannah Kim

Up until a meeting with homeless advocate Ben and recovering addict Sally (both pseudonyms) at the Trinity United Church Food Bank in Port Coquitlam yesterday, my biggest concern with the flowchart in the previous post was fleshing out the most viable and sustainable funding model. However, Sally and Ben helped me realize that I have been blind to perhaps the most critical step in the process of helping homeless people in the Tri-Cities become self sustainable: finding the “right” clients.

According to Ben and Sally, the key driver to seeing effective and durable results to our social innovation is identifying a homeless people who are wanting and willing to change their circumstances, and open-minded to a different kind of life that is possible off the streets. Especially for people who have become accustomed to life on the streets, this begs the question, how do we mitigate the fear of the unknown? As unimaginably tough and challenging the conditions may be on the streets, these may be the “devils” that homeless people are familiar and ready to deal with according to Ben, compared to stability, accountability and many other responsibilities that come with having a home and a job.

To find the most suitable homeless clients who will go through our sponsorship/giving circles program, both Ben and Joyce Lissimore (coordinator, Trinity United Church food bank) highly recommended collaborating with outreach workers from the Hope for Freedom Society. Thanks to daily interactions with homeless people and the fact that they keep a file on each homeless client, outreach workers will be able to help come up with criteria for selecting candidates who are the most willing and able to become self sustainable. These criteria may include the following:

• Must have devised a plan to self sustainability with outreach worker
• Lost home in the last 6 months
• Willing and able to comply with rules set forth by this program and landowner
• Currently employed in part-time or full-time job

In addition to setting the selection criteria and evaluating candidates, outreach workers from Hope for Freedom Society can also provide guidance on how to mitigate the fear of the unknown discussed above. For instance, a virtual tour (i.e. walk-through) of the entire social innovation program may be created through collaboration with the outreach workers.