Creating Homefulness: The Context

This month marks a 5-year anniversary of my attempts to bring a new solution to homelessness to the Capital Region District.
Below is something I wrote at the time.

Creating Homefulness – The Context

Throughout history, our society has tried to ‘treat’ social problems through government policies, legislation, incarceration, medication and market manipulation, only to see the problems persist. With the growing number of people living on our streets, it has become obvious that conditions such as homelessness, poverty, addiction and mental illness won’t be eradicated until the underlying origins have been exposed and ‘healed’.

There is a difference between treating and healing. In ‘treating’ a social problem the symptoms are addressed but the underlying causes remain the same, whereas in ’healing’, the underlying causes and/or conditions are addressed to bring about a state of social, physical and mental wellbeing. For example, it is one thing to prescribe an anti-hypertensive medication for high blood pressure; it’s quite another to expand the person’s context of life so that he/she adjusts their dietary habits and/or stops being angry and repressive.

The homeless come from all socio-economic backgrounds. Addictions, homelessness, crime and most mental health issues are not the core problems at hand; rather they are only symptoms of the problem. The problem is that for whatever reason, individuals disconnect – they experience a three-fold disconnection: from their Self, from others and from our natural environment. Disconnect is about the weight of loneliness and isolation, sometimes even despite being surrounded by friends, family, schoolmates and co-workers. Our society currently has a number of built-in disconnects including:
• obsessions with technology including the internet, e-mail, telephones, and television;
• high divorce/separation rates;
• unraveling of social fabric; and the
• unraveling of the family unit.

Disconnect causes individuals to live with diminished resilience and resourcefulness in life, leading to downward spiraling: emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally. Continued spiraling impacts families and other relationships, finances, careers and vitality. Unchecked, downward spiraling causes growing apathy and indifference. Indifference is the ultimate disconnect. Indifference occurs when one does not care enough to feel any emotion. Indifference to one’s own fate and indifference to most of society.

How do we know that the isolation of indifference is the lowest emotion one can experience?
1. The harshest form of punishment in any prison is solitary confinement…it eventually leads to madness.
2. An abused child/spouse will often prefer to return to the physically/emotionally abusive parent/spouse, knowing the abuse may return, rather than suffer separation from their abusive parent/spouse.

Addictions evolve as a balm to indifference – as a way to deal with apathy, to feel something, to feel alive.

The many forms of addiction, singularly or in combination, evolve as coping mechanisms to deal with the crushing emptiness of indifference; both behavioral addictions and substance addictions. No silver-bullet approach makes sense as a solution. A holistic approach offers the highest probability for true healing and transformation.

Community is our natural instinct against indifference. Community takes many forms: a sports team; church; a card game; a bird-watching club; a company employing two or more employees; or any situation where two or more people interact. When a person feels that he or she cannot fit into any of these, alternatives are found such as street gangs, biker gangs, and drug dealing networks. On the streets, countless sub-cultures naturally evolve – sometimes even using traditional family names: father, mother, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, etc. While these are all fabrications, they give the individual a renewed sense of community. Community is a beginning antidote, even if it is dysfunctional. A bad community is perceived as more desirable than solitude.

In looking to build community and to reconnect and reintegrate, the individual must look at all three areas of separation – the self (through holistic healing modalities); each other (through work, team sports, recreation, school, family) and experiencing our natural environment (through hiking, kayaking, fishing, or simply sitting in Nature and observing flowers, birds and insects, etc.).

Employment is a core focus for both therapeutic and economic reasons. Meaningful employment is a vehicle for developing pride, self-esteem, accountability, responsibility and for furthering community (teamwork) dynamics. Employment is one measure of our success as to whether our holistic program is coming together for each individual and as an organization. Building functional communities for those that are homeless, that are suffering from addictions, etc., is at the core of our approach…resolving the real problem – that of separation and indifference.

Richard Leblanc,
Founder & Executive Director

(We persist)