Asset Mapping

One of the principles of creating community  is known as asset mapping based on the work of John McKnight (Asset-based Community Development Institute). This includes:

     - Developing a method for identifying the voluntary clubs, organizations, faith groups,
       and associations in a neighborhood and fostering new productive relationships among
       them.

     -Identifying the specific gifts, skills, passions, and teachable knowledge of residents
      at the block level fostering new productive relationships between these individuals,
      their families, and children.

    - Developing a method for neighborhood planning that is based on resident ideas for
      improvement and that mobilizes these residents' productive capabilities for
      implementing their own ideas.

Yesterday I was chatting with a local neighborhood resident, a Native Canadian and
well know artist in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver BC (DTES). There is a large

totem pole that was carved and donated to First United Church a few years ago, and
Edgar was showing me the part he carved.

I went to the kitchen to get us a cup of coffee and when I returned he had retrieved
two colors of paint and a brush out of his backpack and had started painting. I had
earlier mentioned my attraction to red tail hawks and I soon saw that was what he was
painting. Then when he was studying my face I knew he was also including me. In no more than 10 minutes he gifted me with this painting.

Edgar is a prime example of how gifted so many of the residents of DTES are and
what a gift he is to the community I feel so privileged to be part of.

Spring at First United Church

Bunks in the Sanctuary

The freezing and rain drenched nights are finally ending with recent warmer temperatures. BC Housing is starting to shut down the winter shelters in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver BC.  First United Church receives funding from BC Housing to function the way they do, but this amount was reduced at the first of the year and restrictions imposed on the numbers allowed in the building.

First United does not see themselves as a winter shelter as its mission is to provide services year round. With the new restrictions the church now sleeps about 150 rather than 240, but still serves 800 to 1000 meals daily. In the last 3 month period 800 people spent 5 nights or less sleeping at the church.

However, the core of the community are the 60 people who see First United as their home right now. It is with this group we primarily attempt to establish a sense of restorative community with the church becoming a temporary home rather than just a place to sleep and get meals. There is a staff of advocates who are regularly seeking places for community members to live. Many of those who have found supported living, still spend considerable time at the church as we seek to provide a sense of belonging. There are avid hockey fans here and about 40 of us recently watched the first Canuck playoff game.

The picture shows some of the beds available for men in the space that used to be the sanctuary when First United was a traditional church. Spiritual programs now are held in the gymnasium where food is served or a smaller chapel that is in the process of being painted and revitalized. Last Wed night at our special dinner and gathering, I brought a message on  Addiction as Spiritual Poverty.

Thanks for your continued thoughts, prayers and support as I seek to help the process of building  community in the DTES of Vancouver BC. I also serve with two other groups: The New Way Community and the Dugout.

Bruce Alexander: Globalization of Addiction...

Bruce is the author of the most important book I have read on addiction: The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. He feels addiction has been overly individualized and looks at the broader cultural / social roots and maintaining that addiction is an adapting to dislocation.   

'Psychosocial Integration' is a profound inter- dependence between individuals and society. It reconciles people’s need for social belonging with their equally vital needs for individual autonomy and achievement. Psychosocial integration is as much an inward experience of identity and meaning as a set of outward social relationships. Establishing the delicate inter-penetration of person and society enables each person to satisfy simultaneously both individualistic needs and needs for community -- to be free and still belong. 

An enduring lack of psychosocial integration, which is called "dislocation” is both individually painful and  socially destructive. It denotes psychological and social separation from one's society. Dislocation could be called "poverty of the spirit."  

Global society is drowning in addiction to drug use and a thousand other habits. This is because people around the world, rich and poor alike, are being torn from the close ties to family, culture, and traditional spirituality that constituted the normal fabric of life in pre-modern times. This kind of global society subjects people to unrelenting pressures towards individualism and competition, dislocating them from social life.

I am pleased to have Bruce as a colleague and new friend. Recently I have also been attending his 6 week seminar on Tuesday evenings. Although Bruce professes to be an agnostic, he values the history and potential of the church and restoring spirituality to address dislocation and addiction. He loves to discuss theology and is quite a student of Augustine.

Another friend Barry Morris will be sharing next week at the seminar from a Christian World View and the 12 Steps of AA. Barry is a United Church minister at the Longhouse, a native ministry. 

There is much more info on Bruce's contributions on this blog, click Dislocation on the top tool bar. Bruce is a student of history and his research of Dislocation over the centuries is exhaustive. For example he demonstrates alcoholism was never a problem with Natives in Canada until they were displaced from their land and culture. Fur traders brought rum early in their exchanges with no impact on the traditional aboriginal culture.


This book is a must for students of addiction....

A Morning at the Dugout...

        The second addiction workshop was well received, and we learned what a positive experience is was to hold it at the Dugout. The mixture of regular visitors, staff and volunteers from First United Church, those who attend the daily AA meetings, and volunteers from other societies in the DTES gave us a sense of community.
         The feedback was "too much material in too short a time!"  The group would have been interested in meeting more often allowing more discussion and interaction.
          I certainly will  take this into consideration for the next workshops being planned. I forget I keep adding and integrating material as I continue my studies. I have just revised the workshop and now have it all on power point which should be a great teaching aid.
        I spend a considerable amount of my time in Vancouver at the Dugout. I am pleased to be on the board of directors and am very invested in the services they offer. I hope you will take a little over two minutes and click on video to watch "A Morning at the Dugout."
        I appreciate your thoughts and prayers and it is always so meaningful to hear from you...
Ross

WORKSHOP in DTES

Yesterday I held Part One of my addiction workshop at the Dugout Drop-in Centre, right in the heart of DTES. There were 18 folks that stayed through the whole presentation, a few others listened for awhile and then left. It was the mixed group we had hoped for: some residents of DTES and homeless, some from the AA that meets there, some staff from First United and the Dugout, and others I have been networking with in Vancouver.

A graduate student who  is the longest standing volunteer and on the board of the Carnegy Community Centre is video taping the workshops. He will also edit them to provide a trailer to assist me as I seek to generate interest with local churches and other groups. What an encouragement he is.

We used one half of the room and left the other half for those stopping in for a snack or coffee. The picture portrays what the Dugout looks like on a usual day and the section we used for the workshop. There were no distractions, and hopefully some of those addicted gained at least a moment of clarity from what they heard. The workshop went so well the manager Barry Robertson and I are discussing having some kind of a helpful workshop / presentation every Wed afternoon. We will contact other agencies in DTES to participate as well as I will present further material.

 I have been studying a lot about homelessness and addiction as I will be presenting three times to the Oregon Coalition of Housing and Homelessness on May 2-5 at Hood River, Oregon.

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and financial support that makes this possible.

Women's Memorial March on Valentines Day

"The February 14th Annual Women’s Memorial March is held on Valentine’s Day each year to honor the memory of women from Downtown Eastside who have died due to the violence of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse. Now in its 21st year, the March is an immensely powerful women’s action that brings courage and commitment to remember and honor murdered and missing women, and to end the violence that vulnerable women in the DTES face on a daily basis." Almost 5,000 walked to bring attention to how women residing in the DTES are so often marginalized by main stream society.

Back in 2002 Robert Pickton, who bragged of 54 murders was eventually charged with 15 (all women from DTES). There is a major hearing going on in the courts today questioning the police's ineffectiveness at the time. The RCMP has publicly acknowledged their failure to take the early reports of missing women and Pickton as a suspect seriously. He started killing in 1991.  A spokesmen for Prostitution Alternatives Counseling Education claims that 110 streetwalkers from DTES have been slain or kidnapped in the past two decades.

Clutching his mother’s death certificate, an angry Troy Boen, 26, said he still has been told nothing about how his mother died, except that her DNA was found on the Port Coquitlam pig farm of serial killer Robert Pickton.

In a report sent to the United Nations on Tuesday, a coalition of a dozen B.C. women's organizations, stated 38 women are still missing on a task force list kept by Vancouver Police Dept and RCMP.

A 1995 survey of Downtown Eastside’s prostitutes revealed that 73 percent of them entered the sex trade as children. More than 80 percent were born and raised outside Vancouver. In 1998 they averaged one death per day from drug overdoses, the highest rate in Canadian history. This rate is much lower today since the advent of harm reduction and Insite (see under Education) on this blog.

Few active sex trade workers stay at First United. Fortunately there are support groups, counseling, safe lodging and medical care available in the DTES.

Workshop in the DTES

For 30 years I have been privileged to serve as an Alcohol & Drug Counselor in a variety of settings including prisons, jails, non-profit and government agencies, private practice and as a Pastor. These personally rewarding experiences have all contributed to a passion for teaching and passing on what I have learned. The two part workshops I teach provide an outlet for this.

On Feb 29 and Mar 7, from 2 – 4 PM I will be teaching a workshop at the Dugout Drop-in Centre in the DTES of Vancouver. My previous blog post on July 16 describes the Dugout in more detail.

This will be an experiment including staff from the Dugout and First United Church, some of the AA group that meets there at noon, as well as some of the 700 people that visit daily. The day starts with a soup line and then residents and the homeless of DTES stop in for a cup of coffee, bread, pastry, and other day old food items donated by local businesses. Most just come briefly, but some stop for at least a short visit. A few others spend considerable time there experiencing a temporary refuge and sense of community, which is the design of the Dugout. I am honored to be on the board of directors.

It is my hope that this may serve as a training for staff, an encouragement for those in recovery and an intervention and moment of clarity for those still struggling with addiction.  A special thanks to those of you who support and make these endeavors possible with your thoughts, prayers, and financial gifts.