Oregon Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (OCHH) Conference

Greetings my friends.

The OCHH conference was a great experience! I had too much material for the time allotted in each of the 3 presentations including the 3 hour workshop on addiction. It was a great learning experience for me.  I am grateful my presentations were well received, even though my material was cut short. In the future I think I will be better able to prioritize material to time allotted.

The perspective I brought from the DTES and the innovative approaches being taken there stirred some great discussions. I was reminded the majority of today's homeless in America are so because of poverty, not addiction or mental health as in DTES where I serve. I was touched by the passionate concern of the group and a number of them inquired about coming for a visit to experience the DTES first  hand.

All of us are concerned about deaths of the homeless. There were 47 reported just in Portland last year. We expect the most marginalized to be able to respond rationally to society's efforts to either "fix or contain them."  But those who die generally have such progressed addiction their willpower has been hijacked leaving few moments of clarity. Innovative interventions are needed for the most marginalized who are the most damaged. This calls for creative strategies in housing and shelters. I was able to share some psycho-social-spiritual dynamics for building community among the marginalized encouraging them to help each other.

A special treat was spending time in the beautiful setting at Hood River with old friends Nick & Marisha Johnson who serve on the board of OCHH. What topped off a wonderful time was my youngest daughter Courtney joining us for the addiction workshop.

Tomorrow I am meeting with an interest group at my home church Redeemer's Fellowship in Roseburg OR after the regular worship service. I will be sharing an update with many of my friends who support me with regular thoughts, prayer and financial  support.

Finding a Niche...

Greetings my friends:

When I arrived in this area on July 7, 2011; I was a stranger to most of the folks I would eventually be working with in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver BC (DTES). There are many civic organizations, government programs, a number of churches and faith based shelters all trying to create communities to help the marginalized living in the DTES recover from their dislocation.

As much as I enjoy meeting with and encouraging individual residents in the DTES, I feel my calling is primarily in educating, training, and encouraging staff and volunteers in the area about addiction and recovery. I teach a faith based view integrated with the science of addiction. I have become part of three groups here: First United Church, the Dugout, and The New Way Community. My passion also includes offering workshops to local churches outside the DTES as I feel the church is the ideal place to treat addiction in concert with self help groups (Workshops).

Last month we held a two part workshop at the Dugout which was well received and we will hold another there in the future. Next month beginning on May 18 I will be doing a two hour training every other week including case studies with the staff that has the most direct contact with the residents at First United Church.

At New Way Community we are discussing attracting theological and other students from local seminaries and universities to the DTES for a 1x1 guided tour. This would give me a choice to do some individual mentoring leading to group training on addiction and recovery for the most marginalized. Only 13% of pastors have had any formal education or training about addiction.

I am humbled about being a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Oregon Coalition for Housing and Homelessness (OCCH) to be held in Hood River on May 2-4. At the welcoming luncheon my focus will be Homelessness and Addiction: Challenging the Status Quo. The next day will be a 90 minute seminar Home for the Homeless and then on Friday a 3 hour workshop on Addiction and Recovery that many of you have attended. What an opportunity to present faith based strategies and the reality that I am supported in this outreach by so many of you readers.

On May 6th I will be in Roseburg for an interest group meeting at Redeemer's Fellowship after the third service (around 1:15 PM). I hope to see most of you there to catch up on our fellowship and the current direction of this journey we share.

Your thoughts, prayers, and financial support make this "niche" possible.
Ross

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.