FFWD Weekly
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City by Tom Babin Educating the public about homelessness seems to be a never-ending job, turning the concerned operative into a modern-day Sisyphus condemned to come oh-so-close to the goal without ever really reaching it. When you talk to those organizing this year's Homeless Awareness Week, however, few seem downtrodden by the task, despite the fact the city's homeless population is exploding and organizations like the Calgary Drop-In Centre and Salvation Army are planning huge expansions to deal with the problem. As a result, many people who work with the homeless are once again dealing with an issue that seems to reappear as often as the mole in a Whack-A-Mole game. It's so common it has its own acronym: NIMBY, or Not In My BackYard. Everyone wants to help reduce homelessness, just not when that means affecting their neighbourhood. The NIMBY syndrome seems to come up whenever homeless shelters or low-income housing developments are proposed in new areas. It reared its head again recently as the city eyed a new shelter development in the Hillhurst area and neighbours got spooked about the idea of homeless people crashing for the night on their block. Some people involved in providing housing for the homeless say long- term education programs can help overcome the obstacles, but others, like Colin Penman of the North-Central Community Resource Group, say it can only be done by bringing people on both sides of the issue together. "I see NIMBYism as pure, unadulterated fear," he says. "I'm sure we'd run into that problem in any area of the city, and I don't know how you educate out fear." Penman sometimes organizes dinner meetings to bring together those of all income brackets and backgrounds in a community because he believes that is often the only way to help everyone begin to understand each other. "We have homeless families here, and I think once people see they are families who are on welfare or are the working poor... they realize they aren't that different." He says strategies to battle NIMBY should be worked into any homeless development or project because it is such a difficult and complicated issue. "We're taking little bite-sized chunks out of the problem. I wish there was one solution. I don't know. It's a tough question.". Penman's statements were echoed by others who work with the homeless in the city. There seems to be no easy solution except working with people and trying to educate society as a whole. The Salvation Army's Evelyn Vandershaeghe says the fear of new homeless shelters or low income housing developments often comes from more practical concerns. She says she would probably fall into the NIMBY category herself if she thought a new shelter or development would reduce the value of her home even if it was helping people "NIMBY is alive and well in all our subdivisions, and it's a very, very difficult thing to deal with," Vandershaeghe says. "Part of the thing with NIMBY for many people is it's the low income housing, not the people put into it. I don't think it's the fact that it's people on low income, but it's having low income property on your block that they think might lower the value of their home. "I don't think most people would have a problem with low income people living next to them, but I would mind a building complex that de-valued mine," she adds. Every new complex, however, is built at least to minimum standards. Also, because most fall into areas where property prices are generally lower – that's where charitable organizations can afford to buy land developments – they usually aren't significantly different than the surrounding dwellings. Vandershaeghe says the problem can be alleviated if more money is invested in developments to ensure they aren't out-of-sync with the surrounding neighbourhood, and the NIMBY attitude tends to fade away if people understand that well-built low-income housing in itself won't devalue a neighbourhood. There are dozens of communities in Calgary that have learned to live with both low-income housing complexes and homeless shelters, but seemingly the only way to directly deal with NIMBY is through hard work. Homelessness is not that far off for most people – despite living in the vaunted New Economy, many continue to live only one or two paycheques from the street. Vandershaeghe says people need to understand it is a real problem in Calgary affecting many regular people.

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