Human Resources Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to come back to you, Ms. Sutherland. Very little mention is made of literacy, although you did talk about this whole issue of literacy education. In your opinion, what percentage of people would need some training? I'm referring to training people to acquire the skills to read very simple documents. Is there a glaring need for this kind of literacy training?

[Betty Jean Sutherland]

We find it more and more common. In Nova Scotia we have a very high illiteracy rate. What we find most concerning is that when we lose jobs, when we have shutdowns of employers, factories, or whatever, and they're in that transition period, we discover that we have a lot of workers out there on the shop floor who can't comprehend, number one, from our perspective, our collective agreements and what their rights and benefits are. When you look at it from that perspective, you also realize that on the shop floor they can't read the employer's policies and procedures either. It goes a long way to making us concerned about health and safety in the workplace when you have that low literacy level.

We're continuously out there. We run literacy programs through our union. We have a very progressive program to reach our members. But on the whole, literacy is a problem in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

In your opinion, is there one segment of the population that urgently requires assistance and if so, which one? My question is directed to the three witnesses. I'm talking here about young children, women, single persons, aboriginals and immigrants.

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

Let me just say I was a member of the committee that recommended the report here, and what struck me was how difficult it is for people with disabilities to handle the current situation, because everybody thinks the person will get rid of the disability and they will be in the labour force. And that is not true.

I'm not saying it's the key, but it's an important one.

[Michael Poworoznyk]

I would say that disability does span most people in poverty. But looking at supports that are out there in terms of housing right now in our city, there is a supportive housing program for women, there are a number of women's shelters, there are second-stage options in terms of housing for women, but those same options don't exist for men. We've been trying to mitigate that. There are a couple of programs that have just built new units from federal funding, and there are a number of men going into those units. But we recognize a bit of a gap. Single men are very isolated and need that opportunity, so that may be a group to think about.

[Betty Jean Sutherland]

From our perspective, we'd like to see all of the avenues worked on, of course, but if we had to pick one that has importance or maybe stands out from the others, it would be affordable child care. It's keeping women out of the job market, and it has become almost a crisis in that we can't get affordable and timely child care.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Madam Beaudin.

Ms. Leslie, seven minutes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for your presentations. I learned quite a bit. It's good to see some familiar faces here.

My first question is for Alasdair. Alasdair, you and I worked quite a bit on interventions in front of the Utility and Review Board here around energy poverty. If I can still be a member of community-based organizations, we are both members of the Affordable Energy Coalition and we've worked a lot on energy poverty.

Taking the idea of energy poverty, which is the relationship between your energy use, the cost of energy, and your income, if a household spends more than 6% to 8% of its income on energy, then they have a high energy burden and are likely in energy poverty.

I wanted to ask you about energy poverty specifically, and how solutions to energy poverty would fit into a poverty reduction strategy. I'm thinking along the lines of the old EGLIH, the EnerGuide for Low-Income Households program, which was maybe in 2005. It was shortly after the election that it was cut.

I wanted to ask you your thoughts on energy poverty as a piece of the framework.

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

It's critical, and of course it goes up and down a little bit with the price of oil, but not as much as one would expect.

One of the things that the Affordable Energy Coalition has tried to do in Nova Scotia is to have poverty be one of the elements that could figure into the rate structure of NSPI. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia has rejected that, and now it's hopefully going to the federal level. We have no impact on what the judges will support, but that would be one thing, to get poverty recognized as something relevant in terms of setting the price of an extremely basic commodity. I talked to a woman the other day, and she has to have candles on because she can't afford the electricity. It is an expensive thing. I have made appearances before the board here ,and we just don't seem to get anywhere with it. It's not NSPI that's against it. It's the legal system that doesn't allow poverty to be treated as an entity when we're looking at rate structures.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

What about your experience with the energy efficiency program, which could really be administered federally?

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

Again, we have the beginnings of one here in Nova Scotia, but the energy efficiency is still being run by NSPI. It's difficult for an organization that sells electricity to teach people how to use less of it. That is going to change, but it hasn't changed yet.

Global warming, energy efficiency--all of these things are national programs, in my view, and need to be structured in such a way.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

But it's also provincial.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks.

Mike, I have a question for you. I find it interesting that you're here advocating to essentially eliminate your job. If we build housing, you'll be out of a job.

Claudia Jahn was here earlier, and I think she testified, from a survey of the folks in the shelter system over one night, that 25% were there because of eviction. I think that was the number she gave us. You talked about supportive housing. As you know, I've worked in tenant representation in Halifax. I have never represented somebody from Metro Non-Profit Housing Association or someone from Women in Supported Housing, or someone from Supportive Housing for Young Mothers. I have never represented a tenant from any of our supportive housing programs. Sadly, I have represented lots of folks from Metro Turning Point, where you are.

I was hoping you could share with us how easy supportive housing can be, how minimal the support can be.

[Michael Poworoznyk]

I know that as we look forward to having a men in supported housing program, we recognize there is an opportunity to work ourselves out of a job. I don't think emergency shelters will ever be eliminated entirely, but the difficulty is in trying to reduce that capacity for people who need it in the very short term--when they're evicted or when something like that happens.

Megan makes a very good point, that proactive investment in those outreach workers Josée Beaudin talked about would be very, very critical, for the workers to visit people. Some of those supports occur when a landlord begins to have an issue with someone who is not keeping their apartment clean and has complaints from other tenants. That is often a very easy fix for an outreach worker to make when they go to visit. And when you think about a $40,000 or $45,000 salary for an outreach worker—which, by the way, we're nowhere near, but we would love to pay a bit better wages for our staff—who goes out and does that visit, that investment in saving the person from being evicted and being put into a shelter at a much higher cost per day than their rent is a great saving.

So these supports and supported housing programs are good measure as economic investments as well as being good social practice. They also help people to have an attitudinal and relational apprenticeship. I say this because what often happens is that we underestimate the situation, thinking that everyone grows up on a level playing field, but they don't. They don't learn the same ways of interacting with people and relational things, due to their circumstances. When they arrive at adulthood and have to navigate the complex legal systems, landlord tenant systems....

Those programs exist in our community right now for supported housing for women, and the models are very successful. They exist in other places as well, and they have shown a cost savings over sheltering. So I think they would be a very wise investment federally.

The other piece is that when someone is in housing successfully, in their own space, they have a better sense of safety and a better sense of privacy and dignity, and they tend to reduce their negative behaviours. A lot of the negative behaviours we see in our shelter happen as a result of congregant living and the reaction of people to someone else's stuff happening right in front of them. If you have your own place, a lot of that's eliminated and you have a place to regroup. I look forward at the end of the day to going home and regrouping. Guys at our shelter don't have that option. So when they arrive back and something's going on, they don't sometimes have a social choice to let it be, because if something happened to their friend and they don't help them, suddenly when they need help, no one will be there for them. There's a lot of economy in social injustice. That's something we all need to be mindful of.

So housing first is a really good understanding. There's lots of research supporting the fact that when a person goes into their own housing, and it's maintained, they do indeed reduce their negative behaviours, whether it's addiction.... They use the mental health system less, which is our highest health care cost, and our justice system less.

So these things are great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you both, Megan and Michael.

We're now going to move over to Mr. Komarnicki for seven minutes, sir.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My initial questioning will be to Michael Poworoznyk. I commend you for the work you're doing. I understand we're going to have the opportunity to visit a little later today. I'm certainly looking forward to that.

I noticed that when you were giving the bed count, there were disproportionately more beds available for males than females. The first question is, do you have an adequate number of beds, or are you short a lot of the time? And are there any seasonal fluctuations with respect to usage?

While we're at that, I noticed that we have 14,470 female-headed, lone-parent families in Halifax compared with male lone-parent families of 2,900. Given those figures, how do they tie into the service you're providing and advocating for?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

There's a caveat. Our organization provides a women's shelter of 20 beds. There are other women's shelters in the city, and the bed count goes up. There are Bryony House and Adsum House. And then again, there's a number of second-stage housing options for women that don't exist for men. I think that some of this disproportion in terms of beds is that the men don't have as many options in terms of the second-stage housing, so they're predominantly being expected to move to market rent or to subsidized units that have long waiting lists. That's part of it.

The two men's shelters total 105 beds. Is that adequate? One of those men's shelters functions on a healthy living model because they have an addiction program. They actually preclude access for people who have active addictions. If someone is drunk or high tonight, they cannot stay at that shelter. That's 30 beds out of their access.

We have a 75-bed shelter and were recording occupancies of 80 last week, but that is a blip. Typically, we don't see a lot of fluctuation from season to season in terms of the occupancy rate, but we do see a difference in people. In the winter, people tend to hunker down in the city they're in, and often closer to home, I find, based on my experience. In the summer, there tends to be a bit of transience. People will want to move, because it's easier to move around in the summer, and maybe look for work or better opportunities. We get the people coming in who are doing that and we get the existing people leaving who are doing that, so it doesn't really create a net change for us.

Would we like to see more of those options for men? Yes. We've talked a lot about that.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

So your first principle is providing shelter. Do you provide any kind of rehabilitation and treatment services or anything like that?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Yes. While people are staying at our facility, we're able to achieve 24/7 service. During the day, we have a support services program, with our staff providing referrals and beginning to actually case-manage with people.

Our progression is that when people arrive at our door we first want to build a relationship that is built on trust, because everybody needs to have a measure of safety with which to meet the challenges of life. As that safety builds, the people are with us, and they are often more truthful. When they know we're not going to take their bed away from them because they're drunk or high, they're more honest about the fact that they're using drugs. When they're more honest about that, we can then talk about what that means and how to reduce the harm to get them to recovery, and that progression happens.

It's the same with setting other goals, like goals for housing and goals for jobs and recovery. Many of our guys will be much more honest when they know that those answers will not eliminate service for them. When they start to be truthful with us, they're starting to be much more graphically truthful with themselves, and it's the truth that sets people free. Denial is the enemy of the addict and of the person who is suffering from any real social malady. In a lot of ways, when there's a denial, it's hard to figure out that you need help.

Then we progress by making those referrals and liaising with other agencies. Increasingly, we want to see more of that, and more of that case management, but the reality of options is still a critical thing that we need.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

First come shelter, food, and trust, and then you start working with developing and building from there.

[Michael Poworoznyk]

That's right.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I notice that you've talked about rewarding partnerships. What I've heard is that for groups like yours and others to continue operating on a continuous basis, and to know that you're sustainable and have a future, we may need to look at how we deliver the funds. The previous panel indicated that there are numerous applications; you have to keep applying on a continual basis to be sure you can survive.

What are your thoughts on that? Can you see any way of improving the way we deliver funds? There are some core agencies and services being provided, and it seems to me that they've sort of established themselves and have proven themselves, yet they have an ongoing operational issue. Do you want to comment on that?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

I would look to the health care system, which is predominantly core-funded. If we had a revolution of our social care system that really understood, instead of our social needs or our departments of social services, whether they're federal funders or provincial, becoming sort of a department of leftovers.... When it comes to budgeting, we think of health care, education, justice, and infrastructure. When we get to social needs, there seems to be a sense that it's left over.

If we were to instead think of the social departments as proactive health departments, we could reframe our understanding. In the health care system, when they core-fund programs, there are annual reviews, but I think there's a subtle understanding that health care costs go nowhere but up. I think we could see a better system if there were multi-year funding with annual reviews. I also think that, much like an audit system functions for the financial sector, an assistance base of research from the funder to actually help with evaluating the programs would also be really welcomed.

In our agencies, as you rightly say, we spend a lot of time trying to articulate our programs year after year, every year, and if it takes me an average of 40 hours to write my major proposal every year, I lose a week of staff time for me if I'm the writer. But that also includes a number of other staff who are clerical and so on. We lose 40 hours of productivity for two to three staff every year.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Another point you raised had to do with making it more palatable to donate to organizations like yours. I've thought about that, even at a point where you have a recession or a downturn in the economy. Maybe it's the very time to tell people to help these organizations. Do you have any recommendations in that regard?

Secondly, are the service clubs and organizations and church groups motivated enough to help out with things that you or others might be doing? Is that an avenue? I'm throwing this out to you and asking for your thoughts.