| Homelessness Action Week 2009 Final Report |
Oct. 20, 2009
Project Connect, Oct. 14.
This very busy event, supported by 90 volunteers, drew at least 700 people into Our Place for services, food and ‘survival packs.’ 700 backpacks were handed out that day, each filled with new socks, gloves, a toque/scarf, grooming products, toothbrush, toothpaste and more that had been donated by the broad community, local churches, and local businesses which had organized office-wide campaigns to collect items. We served 2,100 hamburgers and 1,000 hot dogs. Meanwhile, more than two dozen service providers set up inside Our Place doing everything from haircuts to tax returns. A few highlights:
- 200 birth certificate applications filled out through Carole James’ office
- 50 tax returns completed courtesy of KPMG volunteers
- 30 pets attended to by three volunteer vets
- Innumerable haircuts done by seven hard-working haircutters
- More than 300 surveys completed with participants
- Foot care, acupuncture, blood-pressure testing, diabetes information and HIV testing all available that day
This is the second year that the Coalition has sponsored Project Connect, which not only plays an invaluable role in bringing services to people but is also developing into a feel-good event for people in the broader community who want to be part of the solutions around homelessness but don’t know where to start. Our Place turned out to be a great venue for the event because it is purpose-built to do many of the things that were being done that day (although there were definitely challenges to their organization due to the disruption to the facility).
Project Connect is an excellent opportunity to bring volunteers from the broad community down to “ground zero” for our region’s homelessness issues, and to make the kind of human connections that will hopefully drive them to do what they can to move this complex issue forward. It is an excellent vehicle for educating people about the issues by getting them directly involved in the planning and execution of the day.
All parts of the day flowed smoothly - thanks to amazing volunteers, exceptional staff at Our Place, a well-articulated and organized plan, many meetings in advance, a previous event under our belt, a good floor plan, and much careful strategizing and effort! Having one such event already under our belt was immensely valuable. It can’t be stressed enough that this event requires a solid team of people working with generous time lines.
There was a dialogue session with Coalition leaders from 11:30 to 1 p.m. Many thanks to the people who participated, including Mayor Fortin, four City of Victoria councillors and MP Keith Martin and others. This is a very important part of the event for people from the street community, who really appreciate being able to speak to community leaders about their lives and challenges.
Student roundtable and backpack drive, Oct. 15
The plan going into Homelessness Action Week was for leadership students from the region’s 18 secondary schools to conduct backpack drives throughout September and early October to help us collect 700 new or gently used backpacks for use at Project Connect, then send two representatives each to a round table during Homelessness Action Week featuring an informal conversation with people who had experienced homelessness.
Although only seven of the 18 schools invited showed interest in participating, the ones who were interested were VERY interested. We collected approximately 250 backpacks from the schools, and in a wild scramble were able to secure the other backpacks we needed from bulk-buying deals with Wal-Mart and Real Canadian stores in our region.
The student forum was held at Cool Aid’s Downtown Community Activity Centre, which they donated for our use for that event as well as for two volunteer-training sessions for Project Connect. It went very well, with approximately 25 students in attendance. We had four people who had experienced homelessness speak with the students and tell their stories, as well as four people from the Street Stories project who joined in the conversation. The session lasted for two hours and could have gone longer based on the students’ interest level. Clearly the students got a new perspective on the issues, and learned a great deal.
Art and Soul, Oct. 17 at Victoria Conservatory of Music
This was quite a challenging event, but it turned out to be a wonderful evening when everything came together. We had an estimated 400 people through the door to enjoy the art and music of 22 artists who have experienced homelessness. A very diverse group of people came to the three-hour event, and many positive things were heard from many visitors as well as the artists about the night.
One of the hardest aspects of organizing the event was locating artists. Fortunately, there’s now contact information for all these people, so a subsequent event won’t have that problem. Some of the people had significant mental-health challenges, and their outreach workers were amazing in seeing that they got to meetings and were able to participate in the show.
A great deal of setup work is required for just a three-hour show, so it is recommended that a future show be staged in a venue that allows for a Friday night opening and two more days of the show to remain exhibit on. An empty downtown store front would be ideal for this event, and if secured a month before the event, would also provide the work space for artists to put finishing touches on their pieces prior to the show.
Art and Soul also needs a team of strong volunteers around it, similar to Project Connect. Fifteen volunteers helped with setting up and managing the show itself, and that worked out well, but the organizational aspects of the event would benefit from a team of six or so people working on it well in advance.
Recommendations for future years:
- Start early. Everything about Homelessness Action Week would benefit from planning that starts as early as January, particularly for securing funding and organizing workplace/church donations.
- Improve storage capacity. Were it not for the generosity of our organizers and volunteers, and every possible nook and cranny of Our Place, we would not have been able to store all the items donated for the survival packs and food for Project Connect. It is recommended that we rent a storage locker for the month leading up to Project Connect
- Consider transportation needs. Again, we had to rely on organizers’ and volunteers’ personal vehicles for everything for Project Connect and Art and Soul, which required the transport of all kinds of goods (you’d be surprised how much space 800 packs of potato chips takes up in a vehicle!)
- Encourage community donations through more organized and targeted efforts. While collecting public donations for survival packs is an important aspect of Project Connect, we discovered that appeals for donations from churches and workplaces were the most successful. Again, an early start to Homelessness Action Week organization would allow for the recruitment of such groups in the spring, before they commit to other projects.
- Partner with an arts organization or an art store for Art and Soul. Most of the artists we were working with were still living in profound poverty, if not full homelessness. It is recommended that we organize drives for art supplies, frames, matting material, etc. with a partner organization. As well, it is recommended we develop potential mentors for some terrific but challenged artists in our community.
- Secure space leading up to Art and Soul where artists can do their own framing and matting. Were this event to move to a store front in future years to allow a longer exhibition period, it is recommended that a space be secured at least one month prior to the event so that artists could have the space to finish off works and get them ready for exhibit. As it was, much of that work fell to organizers and volunteers on the Friday before the show!
- Create media partnerships well in advance. Shaw Cable adopted the role of media sponsor this year, and their excellent support of the event including their special panel on homelessness, which aired throughout the week, raised public awareness of homelessness issues. This was very important in generating donations for Project Connect, and likely was responsible for the good turnout we had at Art and Soul, along with a large and supportive article by Adrian Chamberlain in the Times Colonist on Oct. 17.
- Develop a dedicated volunteer base for Art and Soul. This event has major potential, because art and music are able to reach across cultures and bring the broader community into the issues of homelessness in a completely new and different way. There’s also the potential to link up artists with mentors and possible paid work, which would be immensely beneficial to them while also boosting the arts in our region. However, it needs at least six people working together over several weeks to stage the event, similar to the effort placed on Project Connect.
A few final comments:
The Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness contracted Jody Patterson to coordinate Homelessness Action Week for the second year. Her skills, passion and energy made this event come alive and we are enormously thankful for her effort and wisdom in pulling this together. We are very happy with how things went during Homelessness Action Week, and we saw exceptional engagement and support from the broad community, plus some very good media coverage in the lead up to the events on Shaw, A Channel, CBC, the Times Colonist and the Victoria News. We saw many of the same volunteers back for a second year and added many new ones, and we saw even more support from local businesses and service providers (the latter donating socks, facility space and staff time to the cause).
And we helped more than 700 people living in homelessness and poverty as a result of the events we put on. That’s no small feat all on its own.
Much thanks to our major funders: BC Housing, VanCity and an anonymous donor. The United Way and the District of North Saanich each contributed $500 toward the event. The in-kind contribution of Our Place was significant, and they donated 200 pair of socks as well. Cool Aid donated the Activity Centre for two volunteer training sessions and the student forum. Victoria Conservatory donated their lovely facility for Art and Soul, and gave us three excellent staffers who were a great help.
Other key partners:
• Wal-Mart sold us more than 400 backpacks at $5 apiece.
• Real Canadian Superstore gave us a great price on packs ($6-7) and a $500 gift certificate
• Safeway, Save-On Foods and Costco all provided gift certificates used to buy food and beverages for Project Connect and Art and Soul.
• Art World, the Vancouver Island College of Art, and Island Display donated easels and display grids for use at Art and Soul.
• Church of the Nazarene donated 500 pair men’s gloves
• Accent Inn donated 500 small bars of soap
• The Place at Lambrick Park church donated 400 toques and 200 scarves
• St. Philip’s Anglican Church donated 400 emergency blankets
• UM Marketing donated hundreds of razors, deodorant and tampons
• Victoria Foundation, Queen Alexandra, Telus and the BC Ministry of Housing and Social Development all organized workplace collection campaigns
• Dentist John Thiessen donated 10 dozen toothbrushes and 86 tubes of toothpaste
• Driftwood and Spinnaker’s breweries gave donated for Art and Soul
