The Pitfalls of Supportive Housing – Part One

Marvin Ross

Parkdale Landing CATHIE COWARD/HAMILTON SPECTATOR FILE PHOTO

Operating supportive housing is not easy as my family has learned the hard way. As the headline in a recent Hamilton Spectator expose stated:

“Hamilton’s Parkdale Landing was to provide safer supportive housing — but then a murder happened”.

The subhead said “A look inside Indwell’s Parkdale Landing, where drug-dealing visitors have posed such challenges the non-profit says it will never build another home like it.”

This is the link to the story which is behind a paywall but if you have a Toronto Star account, you should be able to read it.

Indwell is a Christian charity that buys up properties and renovates them into very nice residences for the homeless and/or those needing a place to live because of disabilities. The acquisition and renovation they do well but from my own personal experiences, that is all they do well with the $14 million in grants that they get from all three levels of government.

Indwell had been highly recommended to us and so my son applied, waited 3 or 4 years, was interviewed after a visit by us and his caseworker from St Joseph’s Hospital Schizophrenia Outpatient Clinic. He was accepted and moved into a very nice brand new bachelor apartment when Parkdale Landing first opened in September 2018. In November, he woke up, exited his apartment and was met by a hall full of police and forensics personnel as his neighbour across the hall had been found murdered and hog-tied in his bathroom.

OK. Stuff happens wherever you live but this turned out to be the start of a horrendous living experience. Drug use, prostitution, drug dealing, violence, threats, were all regular occurrences and staff were helpless. My son had break ins, stuff stolen, threats and little was done by staff. I have a chronology of much of my correspondence with staff in a PDF file including my snarky comment that I hope the person who stole my son’s medication blister pack gets some use out of his Abilify (an antipsychotic).

Staff admitted there were problems and they were working on them while the police told me that Indwell did not do enough to make the building safe. Indwell said it was all a police matter and one desk sergeant wondered why anyone would live there. One cop offered to take my son to a safe place for the night on one occasion.

At one point, residents circulated a petition asking that a security guard be employed but they were turned down. There is one there now.

When the Spectator reported on the trial in November, 2021, all that my son had reported was verified and staff at the Schizophrenia Outpatient Clinic told me they were stunned. This is the link to that article which may still be behind a paywall. Here is some of what was testified to in court:

Nearly all residents and visitors who have testified admitted to being drug users and, in some cases, dealers.

Security video from the hallway in the 28 hours leading to Michel being found shows people going between units at all hours.

Suzanne Maye knocked on Michel’s door asking for a morphine pill.

“He didn’t give it to me because he only had one left,” she testified. “There was a homeless guy there. I think, George.”

Maye told the jury she was high that night and her memory is hazy.

“Crystal meth. I was up for two or three days … I don’t remember yesterday, never mind three years ago.”

Early on the 30th, David Herak — a drug dealer then — knocked on Michel’s door while Beverly Staines watched. Opassinis let him in.

Staines, high on crack and owed $20 by Michel, wanted in too.

“I tried to squeeze in, but I got shoved out.”

Herak came out barely a minute later. He had seen Michel and knew he was dead.

I had mentioned the Indwell problems to the editors I’ve worked with at the Hamilton Spectator and then contacted the reporter who covered the trial. After the guilty verdict, she told me she wanted to write an article about Indwell once the person was sentenced. She mentioned that she always thought Indwell did good work and was now shocked to learn what was really going on.

Meanwhile, Indwell put up a new building next door for people who were more independent and my son moved there into a one bedroom. The problems are not as bad but they are not great. I did request police statistics for both buildings under freedom of information which were used in the Spectator article and are shocking.

In Parkdale Landing from Sept 2018 to February 24, 2022, there were 1,261 emergency calls to the building or one per day. The most frequent was ambulance. 103 criminal charges were laid mostly for fail to comply with a probation order and there were seven deaths – one murder, two suicides, two overdoses, one natural causes and one undetermined but likely an overdose.

In the new building from December 2020 to February 24, 2022, there were 302 emergency calls, 21 criminal charges mostly fail to comply and no deaths.

My son, David, is quoted in the article and said:

“I wanted a place where people with drug addiction problems and mental illness can live happy and more productive lives,” he says. “There was a murder. There were overdose deaths from heroin. There were fights. There was a suicide.”

“I wanted to keep things quiet. Low key.”

“People were always going door to door, knocking on the door and shouting about drugs. There were some really bad times there.”

He says visitors caused problems at Parkdale. “They’re homeless and they’re crashing at their friend’s house.”

“Go out at the wrong time of day and you’d be assaulted for $5 in your pocket. If I went outside for a cigarette, I wouldn’t feel safe.”

He felt that way despite police being at Parkdale on an almost daily basis, he says.

Ross didn’t witness anything the night of Michel’s murder. When he opened his door the next morning, there were police officers in the hall. When he learned what happened, he says he felt “disturbed, not safe.”

Ross never really knew Michel, but he was friends with another tenant who died of a drug overdose at Parkdale.

“I didn’t belong at Parkdale,” Ross says. “They lump mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction together. That’s just stupid. It’s not working.”

Since the article appeared, he has had some residents thank him for what he said and one person told him that he would like to move but he has nowhere to go.

Indwell has been trying to evict some tenants but has difficulty doing so I’m told but, given that they screen potential residents, they should be doing a better job of it. Since that article appeared, there was a stabbing at the back door of the building. One person was arrested but the badly injured victim ran off and the police are looking for him.

This is not the way to run supportive housing and, as a taxpayer, I resent the amount of money given to an agency that cannot get it right. One lawyer I consulted wondered why residences like this are not inspected by some level of government who fund them and that is a very good question. Do our ill relatives not require the assurance of safe, proper housing to live in?

Indwell promotes its housing as harm reduction but from what I’ve seen, that means lectures on the safe use of drugs and the supply of naloxone kits. Since all their bad publicity, they are now saying that their homes provides enhanced programs that wrap tightly around the tenant. I’m not sure what that means and there are no examples on their website but it is something they should have been doing from the outset.

The one thing that they should not have been doing is mixing residents with different problems and needs in one place. People with serious mental illnesses with no illicit drug use (like my son) are quite different from those with addictions.

Stay tuned for Dr David Laing Dawson’s comments on this and similar situations coming shortly.

And, as this is mental health month, please take a look at our  Discount on All Our Top Rated Kindle Schizophrenia Books. See https://www.prlog.org/12915487.html