CUPS workers, ex-workers raise HOPE for axed outreach program

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The CUPS Community Health Centre is one of the essential services that the Calgary Urban Project Society provides to homeless and impoverished Calgarians.
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The Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) is currently raising money to move its operations into a new building.
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Entrance to the CUPS Health Centre, one of the main services of the Calgary Urban Project Society.
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Family and Community Support Services, a government of Alberta agency, provides more than $500,000 per year in funding to the Calgary Urban Project Society.
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Family and Community Support Services has a mandate to prevent homelessness and allocates funding to non-profit agency programs that work towards prevention.

Reported by Allison McNeely
Saturday, April 30, 2011

Opened by dort
Thursday, April 28, 2011

CUPS frontline workers, ex-workers raise HOPE for axed outreach program

Reported on Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Frontline workers affiliated with the Calgary Urban Projects Society (CUPS) are raising money to launch a new program to replace homeless emergency services lost with the cancellation of the CUPS mobile outreach program.

The CUPS mobile outreach van went to homeless Calgarians, and those who are at a high risk of becoming homeless, to provide food hampers, condoms, transportation and other forms of crisis assistance right where those in need are — which is often on the streets.

“Crisis outreach work is falling to the wayside [among non-profits that work with the homeless]. That’s why we want to create this kind of program, build up interest again,” says CUPS outreach manager Adam Melnyk. “There also needs to be the support in place to support the people in need.”

Melnyk says that after the cancellation of CUPS mobile outreach, “there were some issues with gaps in services.”

The Housing Outreach Prevention Engagement (HOPE) program plans to offer services similar to the CUPS mobile outreach program with an emphasis on moving people into housing and helping them stay there. For example, the HOPE team will provide moving services, deal with eviction notices and offer in-the-home support to those who have been housed.

HOPE’s mandate will be to “sustain housing and prevent homelessness,” says Robert Perry, director of internal operation for CUPS.

The CUPS mobile outreach was cancelled by CUPS because its ability to prevent people from becoming homeless was not proven, says Perry.

CUPS receives funding from Family and Community Support Services (FCSS), a provincial-municipal government partnership that delivers preventative social services, including homelessness preventation. FCSS did not cut funding from the mobile outreach program, CUPS decided to reallocate the money to its Family Centre, which provides food hampers, life skills training and children’s programming.

CUPS has tasked Melnyk and his outreach team with raising $50,000, the same amount of money that it cost to run the cancelled mobile outreach program. According to Dan Grover, one of the organizers of the HOPE program, “We have to raise $50,000 before they’ll [CUPS] let us put the van on the street. They said once we reach 75 percent of that, they’ll let us start.”

“Ideally, October would be the best time, especially with winter coming,” says Melnyk.

Perry acknowledges that HOPE “might never happen [or] might happen in a short period of time.” It all depends on if its supporters can raise the money.

Melnyk says providing tangible results to CUPS, the government and independent donors is the biggest challenge, other than raising money, that faces CUPS outreach. He believes that HOPE’s mandate will lead to “better displays of outcomes and how we’re doing the work we’re doing.”

A large part of fundraising is, “getting the word out and letting people know this is what we’re doing, and trying to connect with people who are interested in what we do,” says Melnyk. He suggests that the HOPE program’s targeted work — housing, outreach, prevention and engagement — will help potential donors better understand the benefits of homeless outreach programs.

Grover says some of the HOPE team, made up of about 10 former and current CUPS frontline workers, would like to eventually create their own non-profit organization. They are affiliated with CUPS because of its institutional resources, particularly the ability to issue tax receipts to donors.

“It’s not the easiest task to raise $50,000 and having the ability to issue tax receipts is an incentive to donate,” says Melnyk.

“We used to get the argument ‘you guys won’t help me until I’m homeless,’ but we want to help whoever needs it,” says Grover.

Calgarians can donate to the HOPE program via the CUPS donation page. Fundraising events have been planned for the next two months.

ORIGINAL HEADLINE: CUPS CUT OUTREACH PROGRAM, LEAVE 'BIG HOLE'

Allison McNeely
Reported on Saturday, April 30, 2011

A downtown agency that works with homeless and impoverished Calgarians is shutting down its longstanding mobile outreach program — a program that offered clothing, emergency food hampers and transportation to those in need.

“They got me through some seriously trying times … suicidal mind set, depression and stuff like that,” says Bill Naves, a former client of mobile outreach who is now living in housing.

The program also offered condoms to sex workers, took emergency referrals from the 211 for emergency food hampers and eviction assistance and drove drunk people to the Alpha House at the request of the Calgary Police Service when the Downtown Addiction Outreach Partnership (DOAP) was overloaded with other clients.

"[We get] calls from people who don’t have a friend in the world… they have us come over and talk to them, rather than going on a using binge," says Whitney Corning, a laid-off member of the CUPS mobile outreach team.

The program's budget — about $50,000 a year — is being reallocated to CUPS's Family Centre, where agency organizers say the money will be better spent.

“The preventative aspect of [mobile outreach] is not that proven,” says Robert Perry, CUPS senior director of internal operations. Perry would like to see more funding put towards CUPS programs that prevent homelessness.

CUPS receives more than $500,000 per year in funding from Family and Community Support Services, a provincial-municipal partnership program charged with delivering preventive social services. Katie Black, the service's Calgary manager, agrees that funding for CUPS's mobile outreach program could be spent better elsewhere.

“The best we could do was help people manage their misery, but now we’re doing better on either end,” says Black, referring to the emphasis on homeless prevention and placing people who are already homeless in housing.

However, many of the clients served by the mobile outreach team are beyond prevention, as they are already homeless — but not quite ready to be housed, because they require intensive assistance. “We help them until they are — if they ever are — ready to be housed,” says Corning, adding that the team continues to help clients after they get housing.

Cherie Nicholson, another former member of the CUPS mobile outreach team, says the service is unique because they physically go to clients.

“CUPS met people in person … going to where they were, to see what could be done there,” says Nicholson. The family centre requires clients to come to CUPS, which can be challenging.

The centre provides parenting and life skills training, children’s programming, referrals for food hampers and other basic needs for families — with a strong focus on aboriginal, immigrant and senior populations. As the centre's name suggests, it's not aimed at assisting individuals.

Nicholson says that CUPS has chosen to focus on families and children, groups that everyone can agree need support. By contrast, the average CUPS mobile outreach client is a single, older white man.

Robert Perry says other teams will fill the service gaps created by the loss of the mobile outreach program — for example, the Downtown Outreach Addiction Partnership (DOAP), a a joint initiative between CUPS and the Alpha House shelter that focuses on moving addicts off the street and into shelters. CUPS's encampment team also finds homeless people who are sleeping outside and takes them to shelters.

A contract is currently being negotiated to increase DOAP's services to 24 hours a day, according to Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

However, despite the presence of the DOAP and encampment teams many people, like former client Naves, feel there will be an absence of a catch-all service to help those in crisis and fill the gaps in the other services.

“It’s gonna put a big hole in the outreach services in Calgary. A big hole and a lot of strain on the DOAP team.”

Follow Allison McNeely on Twitter at @AllisonMcNeely.

The Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) has just announced that it will be cutting its outreach program beginning April 30. Twenty-one years of community outreach and homeless prevention will be shot down the drain with a scant two-weeks' notice. There is no transitional plan.