Five months after executive director of the Hope and Area Transition Society Gerry Dyble called for Hope to have an ‘uncomfortable conversation’ around homelessness in the community, a group has begun to do just that.
The Hope Active Response Table (HART) was formed out of Dyble’s call to stop labeling homelessness a ‘HATS issue’ and instead deal with it as a community issue. The group includes a wide range of organizations and individuals, including local and regional government, First Nations, and even the fledgling #takebackHope group.
The groups attending HART meetings read like a laundry list of local movers and shakers, among them Chawathil First Nation, AdvantageHOPE, the Fraser Health Authority, RCMP, the District of Hope, HATS, Hope Community Services, the faith community, the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Chamber of Commerce. It is crucial to have all the actors at the table as the issue of homelessness is extremely complex, Dyble stressed.
She gave an example of one effort to clean up a place where several people have been camping near the railway tracks in Hope. While it may sound like an easy fix to simply go to the area with garbage bags and clean up, as with everything to do with homelessness, any potential solution is a complex one.
Chawathil First Nation and the railway company need to be involved, depending on whose land the camp is on, as does HATS and the people residing there as it is their belongings and their ‘home’ which is being moved.
To tackle the complexity, HART has been meeting since March. The group has zeroed in on five priority areas: housing, education and awareness, mental health and addictions services, employment and partnerships. Concrete steps on each of these areas are still in the works.
HART is not connected to the Aggressive Panhandling Strategy Task Force, a separate initiative led by the District of Hope which tackled ‘street issues’ and began meeting August 2017.
READ MORE: Minutes of first task force meeting reveal issues, solutions
Dyble is still looking into how to include the voices of people with ‘lived experience’ of homelessness. Including these people in HART meetings is an option but Dyble is considering creating a more intimate setting, possibly a focus group, for people to share their views.
Including #takebackHope, a group of concerned citizens who are loosely organized through a Facebook group of the same name with 473 members, was a decision not taken lightly said Dyble.
“I think that it is important to have those with different opinions sit at the table, to allow us to examine our processes. To look at different ways of how we can address homelessness,” she said.
TakebackHope have been criticized for posts on their Facebook group including some which incite violence towards homeless individuals and panhandlers, or photos of individuals in vulnerable positions where the individual can be clearly identified. For example, a photo of a person well-known in the community sleeping in front of District Hall was posted earlier this year.
Ivan Canuel, a member of the group who attends HART meetings, told the Hope Standard the group “has always had the policy of gathering the voice of concerned citizens of Hope to peacefully, respectfully and inclusively discuss any and all ideas and concepts with the hope to gather and distribute information to assist our communities to influence change…No discussions or comments inciting violence, hate and discrimination are tolerated and are quickly removed when observed”
De facto spokesperson Cindy Koszegi told the Hope Standard at a May protest action by the group that posting photos online of people engaging in ‘negative behaviours’ or sleeping isn’t fair, however, those who choose to put themselves in these positions also share some of the blame.
“Public shaming for those who shame themselves is a poor way to do it, however, unless you actually come down here and see that, some people aren’t aware of it,” she said. “At the very least, faces should be blocked out, the people may be recognizable. They are the ones who have put themselves into the position of having the opportunistic take photos of them.”
The group has fought to distance themselves from the posts which have received criticism, removing them from the group and posting rules on the group calling for ‘no hate speech and only civil discussion.’
READ MORE: WATCH: Group calls for community safety patrol to deal with aggressive panhandling
“My thought it that when people are advocating for violence and threats and name-calling and what not, that’s based out of fear and ignorance of the issue, and this is an opportunity for us to educate people on the issue. How complex homelessness is,” Dyble said.
“It’s an opportunity for both sides, to hear what the community is fearful of. And then that’s an opportunity for us to say ‘OK, how can we educate the community? So that they’re aware’.”
Canuel said #takebackHope will continue to be a part of HART’s meetings and was hopeful about the potential for change with the range of representatives attending the meetings.
HART works from a place of recognition that issues like homelessness, mental health and addictions all stem from trauma, Dyble stressed. In order to deal with the issues the trauma must be recognized and dealt with first.
“That is the message that we want to get out to the community: The folks that you see that are homeless, panhandling, they have trauma in their life,” Dyble said.
“I know that’s controversial for some folks because of course they don’t want people panhanding and drinking in the park… they don’t want their children exposed to that. But I don’t know where you’re going to go in society where your children aren’t going to be exposed to that. I mean that’s just the world in which we are living, so how do we educate people?”
READ MORE: Homelessness increases in Hope and Boston Bar
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