Recently, there have been some misunderstandings about mental health, homelessness, and reality.
Some of these misunderstandings have been written in the letters page of this paper. I’d like to address one such misunderstanding.
A vocal opponent to the proposed low-barrier housing project on School Road in Gibsons, while expressing legitimate concerns about the possible troubles or inconveniences such a facility might pose to nearby property owners, mistakenly conflated the institutions that care for the homeless. It was an honest, but careless, remark. I’ve made a few myself.
The Arrowhead Clubhouse is not a casual drop-in resource for folks without a home – who may be living rough and for whom there is no bed at the Upper Deck or other shelters. Arrowhead is a clubhouse for adult members who live with a serious and persistent major mental illness. The clubhouse operates on a model first articulated at Fountain House in New York in 1948, and which has been refined and codified by Clubhouse International. Almost 400 clubhouses around the world subscribe – to a degree locally relevant – to CI’s model.
This model stresses independence, dignity, hard work to keep the clubhouse operating at the best positive level possible, and above all ownership. The clubhouse is the members’ place. It is where they can find respect, fellowship, opportunity, and a democracy where they can write their own days – to spend their terribly small budget on things like food, art programs, sporting opportunities, and such.
Yes, it is true that about a quarter of members are homeless. That is a sad, but inevitable truth. And it is also true that many homeless in our community would benefit from Arrowhead’s welcoming and inclusive attitude. But, and this is a big but, the Clubhouse’s constitution and intention is to provide care and support for members, not the general homeless population – which is appallingly large.
Sure, that sounds hard. But there are reasons.
The first is the mandate, which I just mentioned. Arrowhead has a mission which, while it is flexible day to day, is about mental health – and supporting members to attain their goals and a better inclusion in the community.
The second is about budget. We don’t get a boatload of funding, though that is not for lack of trying. Mental health is not an easy cause. There is stigma, fear, lack of understanding; and there are more visible illnesses to support. There is also “donor fatigue.” And let us not ignore the too-common belief that mental illness, drug use, and crime are odious, inevitable partners.
Arrowhead spends each dollar twice. The clubhouse dovetails with other resources in the community to get the most of what we all get for social services. Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and the really fine folks at Mental Health – doctors, nurses, outreach workers – walk members, hand in hand, along a rocky road. It is worth noting that funding at VCH has taken big hits in recent years. Yet, the good work goes on.
Sunshine Coast Community Services, underfunded as it is, is driven by the dedication of all staff – who are woefully paid for the work they do.
Finally, volunteers, the churches, charities, and organizations like Rotary give our community a sense of solidarity and make Arrowhead’s mission possible. Yeah, we would like to address homelessness in a more direct way. But we can’t.
