Therapeutic Community model deserves a chance

-from Monday Magazine
There exists a proven antidote to homelessness, drug addiction and other symptoms of social disconnect—a service delivery model known as Therapeutic Community. This innovative approach to bringing marginalized citizens back into the social fold has recently been proposed in Greater Victoria, and a local non-profit group, the Creating Homefulness Society—led by CEO Richard Leblanc—is spearheading the multi-stakeholder effort.

The key to Therapeutic Community’s success lies in bringing the necessary help—basic medical care, counselling, legal aid, skills training, and healthy food—together under one roof. As well, the organization interacts with members as people with problems, not just victims, to ensure members recognize themselves as more than misguided burdens on society. Admission is usually based on a prospective member’s demonstrated willingness to become drug-free and make a serious effort to stay clean. Finally, the involvement of peers and former clients to enable the recovery, skill-building and social development work of the community’s members is critical.

Positive, concrete results of Therapeutic Communities are well-documented—due to the lengthy treatment time frames (one year or more) and ongoing contact maintained with former members—and are relatively easy to obtain. From Italy to Toronto, therapeutic communities consistently report 70 to 80 percent success rates, as measured by indicators like former members’ abilities to hold down jobs, secure adequate housing or remain drug-free. In contrast, the “catch-and-release” approach of typical drug treatment programs makes it difficult to get good data. Where available, it shows success rates of between only 5 and 15 percent.

AIDS Vancouver Island spokesperson Andrea Langlois says her group, a non-profit that deals directly with the fallout of drug addiction and its link to infectious disease, is in favour of a Therapeutic Community development as part of a range of social service supports. Kathy Stinson, executive director of the Victoria Cool Aid Society, echoes the position that a Therapeutic Community, as part of a continuum of services in the Capital Region, would be welcome.

However, the way it’s been has become the way it is—in other words, a classic status quo situation. It seems that if anything is able to transcend the current cyclical nature of our social services, it will need to be more radical, and more proactive, than recycling familiar stop-gap measures.

Creating Homefulness Society CEO Richard Leblanc discussed his recent drive to build a Therapeutic Work Community on the former Woodwynn Farms property in Central Saanich.

“It became clear to me that the real obstacles to affecting change are not logistical issues like zoning, or the number of participants, or even the qualifications of our organization,” says Leblanc, with obvious frustration.

“We have strong partnerships with government and education, a stellar board of directors, a leader with experience in the Therapeutic Community model, and a great rural property, itself in need of rehabilitation. Yet the proposal was not even given a full reading before [Central Saanich] council. The real challenge that communities and governments need to solve in order to deal with serious social problems is how to transform bureaucracy, politics and fear into tools for cooperation.”

The cost to acquire the Woodwynn Farms property is $12 million, with additional costs of around $2 million a year to operate Therapeutic Community programs. The idea has grown legs, as expressions of support continue to run in the local media. That it is an exciting approach is acknowledged by a wide range of people, including some of those who voted against it in Saanich. Central Saanich Mayor Jack Mar, himself a former farmer, offered to help establish the agricultural program, if another property could be found.

But facing up to old prejudices will be required before meaningful progress can be made on any local Therapeutic Community initiative.

“You know, everybody asks me, who are we aligned with?” says LeBlanc. “That question reveals a lot about the political assumptions within this issue. Remember the people most affected? That’s who we’re aligned with.”

Same old, same old

Leblanc has been here before. He launched and operated the Youth Employment Program in Victoria, before federal funding to a range of programs—including YEP—was axed in 2002. Primarily aimed at helping youth on the verge of sreet life, YEP experiened a 76-percent success level with graduates, a statistic determined by actively keeping tabs on them once they’d left the program. After five years, the majority of people who had experienced the YEP continued to lead healthy, productive lives. Kat, one former participant, sums it up well when she says, “YEP helped me with a social, spiritual, intellectual and physical backbone that allowed me to build a lasting work ethic, keeping me on the path to housing and independence in Victoria.”

Though he did not realize it at the time, Leblanc’s grassroots effort had precedence in other parts of the world, where participants were experiencing similar levels of breakthrough results.

The leading example is San Patrignano, Italy, which has evolved from Therapeutic Community to fully functioning village, and could be a model for study and emulation. Founded in the 1970s, it is now a community of 2,000 people, taking in approximately 700 new residents a year. The population remains level as graduates return to the outside world and new people, ready for change, are admitted. Employing aproximately 300 staff—many of whom are former drug users—San Patrignano provides everything from dental and legal care to over a dozen different vocational training options. It is also a powerful ally in the Italian government’s drug awareness efforts.

But can a model that works in the European social climate fly in Canada? Or does San Patrignano owe its success primarily to its remote country setting, far away from the average, tax-paying Italian?

Detractors of Leblanc’s Woodwynn proposal worried the semi-rural location was still too close to “temptation” to be effective. But Caritas, a Therapeutic Community in North York—a neighborhood within Toronto’s city limits—hasn’t let this stop it from building a successful program. Founded in 1983 by Catholic priest, Father Gianni, and a group of concerned families, the Caritas Therapeutic Community recognizes that symptoms like drug addiction are a sign of deeper turmoil, and offer spiritual and human support to help individuals recover their self-worth. However, the Therapeutic Community still finds the established members of the community tend to distance themselves from the work of Caritas, in some cases denying that homelessness is “their” problem.

“Challenges with community stigma are ongoing, despite an estimated 80-percent success rate with our members,” says Elios Sergnese, Caritas executive director. “But it is also the support and enthusiasm of the community that has allowed us to be successful for over twenty years.”

Finally, the prudent taxpayer might wish to consider recent research on B.C.’s tax burden for the issue, done by Royal Roads University. The present, police-intensive and emergency shelter model costs an average $50,000 a year per person, while the housing-first model (currently advocated by City Hall) comes in at $25,000 per person—but without any active rehabilitation. The Therapeutic Community model, however, costs $20,000 per person, with the successful client assumedly returning to work and contributing to the public purse.

So close, yet so far

Establishing a Therapeutic Community in the Victoria region—with an estimated 1,500 homeless people (and counting)—is not the ultimate solution to our downtown crisis. But it could be one positive result of dissolving our community and political barriers in a potent mixture of compassion, commitment and best-practices thinking. Current “emergency” measures—like shelter beds and needle exchanges—are no way to solve the growing problem. Spiraling costs to the taxpayer and fragmented, competing social services, overworked police and social workers, and an increasingly fearful community are the unhappy results of an approach that has thus far lacked a place for healing. In addition, the entrenched status quo has created a bureaucratic and political minefield that impedes any attempt to explore innovative methods.

Leblanc is committed to another effort at Saanich’s Woodwynn Farm and creating a project that can transcend fear and politics, respect its neighbors, and bring productivity and life back to the property.

“We are so close,” says Leblanc. “Many different people and resources have stepped up in support, and a real desire for progress towards a solution exists now in the Greater Victoria area. This is a natural compliment to established services, and the time to build it has arrived.”

But the young non-profit society cannot do it alone. The solution to the homelessness crises in Victoria will reveal itself only once the communities and governments affected by the issue commit to allowing radical positive change, right in their own backyards. M

See createhomefulness.org for more on the Centre for Homefulness.

Apr 30 2008

Learning the Ropes at New Hope

Prince George Therapeutic Community goes through growing pains

B.C. recently embraced the Therapeutic Community movement with the opening of the Baldy Hughes-New Hope Therapeutic Community near Prince George in winter of last year.

Championed by Vancouver-Burrard MLA Lorne Mayencourt, the project began accepting clients in December, 2007, and intends to host about 100 people by the close of 2008.

“A broad-based inter-agency dialogue, developed over a full year, led to the community acceptance so necessary to the establishment of New Hope,” says Mayencourt. “It is truly exciting and rewarding to see this concept become a reality here in B.C.”

Mayencourt traveled to San Patrignano to learn what Therapeutic Community was all about, and grew convinced it was the right approach toward a real solution to the growing drug abuse and homelessness issues facing B.C. communities. New Hope asks for a client commitment of three years, but as reported recently by the CBC, about half of the initial participants have already fled or been asked to leave. New Hope’s first executive director has also departed. These are painful reminders that building successful programs is not easy, and requires long-term commitment—not just from the clients, but from the community as well.

Mayencourt remains committed to the project’s survival, and has spent much of his time in recent weeks running the facility and restoring its direction.

“The Baldy-Hughes site had the right facilities in place, but most importantly there was a wiliingness from the Prince George community to be part of a solution to the drug addiction problem,” he says.

“Recent challenges are actually making us stronger, and better able to respond to the realities of implementing Therapeutic Community solutions.”

—R.S.