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Not just an urban issue

Athabasca service providers will be conducting a survey for a few more days to track rural homelessness in the community and across the province.
20181025-Homeless count Velvet-AB-1
Home visitation and parent-child assistance program worker Velvet Buhler works with Healthy Families Healthy Futures, which organized a free soup and coffee session at the Grand River Café Oct. 23. The event was sponsored by Athabasca Family and Community Support Services.

Athabasca service providers will be conducting a survey for a few more days to track rural homelessness in the community and across the province.


Through October, Athabasca Family and Community Support Services has been co-ordinating the month-long survey around the region, which will help estimate Athabasca’s homeless population.


Lori Heywood is FCSS’s community programs co-ordinator and the project representative for the local homelessness task force. She said in an email local agencies, services and groups have been very willing to participate.


“We all recognize the need to gather statistics on the levels of homelessness and/or unstable housing in our area,” she stated, adding that councils from Athabasca County, the Town of Athabasca and the Village of Boyle are all in support of the project, as is the Athabasca District Chamber of Commerce.


“We have been aware of a level of homelessness in the area through our work in the community, our participation in Interagency and through discussions with other agencies,” she also stated. “There are visibly homeless individuals in our community.”


The Alberta Rural Development Network’s executive director Dee Ann Benard said there are 21 communities across the province conducting the survey, and all data will be collected by December.


She also said the organization had been hoping at least 10 communities would want to participate, and they ended up receiving applications for 28.


“This is the first time in history, as far as we know, anywhere in the world, that anyone has tried to do multiple communities all doing the same thing — rural communities,” she said. “We all know about point in time counts in the big cities; they do those every couple years. But nothing like this, as far as we know, has ever been done in rural communities.”


She said they will have data not only about how many homeless people live in these rural communities, but what that community looks like.


“There’s kind of a broad definition of homelessness,” she said. “It’s not just people living on the streets, under a park bench, that kind of thing.”


She said by doing this, communities will be able to better allocate their resources.


“Right now, they know there’s homeless people, but they don’t really know why they’re homeless,” she said. “So do we put more money into helping people with addictions? Do we put more money into helping people find affordable housing or employment or day care or whatever it is.”


She said they can then take all this data to higher levels of government and lobby for more money to help people who are homeless in rural communities.


Heywood said Athabasca FCSS hopes to shed some light on how many people in the community are the hidden homeless — people at risk of utter homelessness, worried about making the next rent payment, couch surfing, or living in inadequate housing situations.


“The province will have a clearer picture of the homelessness issue in rural communities and can use this data when assigning resources to address this issue,” she stated. “As a community, we will be better equipped with data to support the issues in our area and be ready to access resources at the provincial and federal level should they become available.”


Home visitation and parent-child assistance program worker Velvet Buhler works with Healthy Families Healthy Futures. She said she hopes the survey helps people see there are issues with homelessness not only in major cities, but in rural areas.


“That it effects the whole community when we have homeless people,” she said. “You need stable housing to house stable families.”


Buhler said conducting the survey is not easy. She said it is frustrating.


“My heart breaks,” she said. “It’s very hard hearing, ‘I have no place to live, and I got kicked off of supports, and I don’t know where I’ll be living next week. And just kind of go, ‘K, thanks for your information.’”


Buhler said with rises in homelessness, violence and crime rates go up.


“I honestly think that everything starts with stable housing, because you can’t tell someone to get a job if they don’t have a place to live,” she said. “If you’re homeless, you don’t have bank accounts, so you can’t a lot of times access even supports, because you need a bank account.”


Sponsored by FCSS, Healthy Families Healthy Futures organized a free soup and coffee session at the Grand River Café Oct. 23. Buhler conducted most of the surveys.


“I just thought that this (the Grand River Café) would be a good place because so many people live here who are transient,” she said.

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