{"id":34400,"date":"2020-03-13T03:59:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T10:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34400"},"modified":"2020-03-12T16:22:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:22:47","slug":"talking-helps-reduce-stigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/03\/13\/talking-helps-reduce-stigma\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking helps reduce stigma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Peggy Allen, Shelley Karrel, Shelley Rivkin, Jordan Bowman and Howard Harowitz. (photo from JACS Vancouver)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The capacity for transformation and healing was front and centre at the event Optimism and Hope: Erasing Stigma of Mental Illness, Addiction and Homelessness.<\/p>\n

Co-sponsored by Jewish Family Services<\/a> (JFS), Tikva Housing<\/a> and Jewish Addiction Community Services<\/a> (JACS) Vancouver, the panel discussion on Feb. 26 was held at Temple Sholom. It featured Shelley Rivkin of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Abbotsford entrepreneur and volunteer Peggy Allen, and Jordan Bowman of Last Door<\/a> treatment and recovery centre in New Westminster.<\/p>\n

Temple Sholom\u2019s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz welcomed those gathered by talking about the Aleinu prayer, which, he said, asks us \u201cto go out into the world and do what we\u2019re praying for. And so, if I can make a request of all of us, myself included, it\u2019s to go out from this room and to do and to share what we\u2019ve learned and what we\u2019ve heard tonight with our families and with our broader circle. That\u2019s our shlichut<\/em>, that\u2019s our sacred mission, beyond just coming here today to get what we need for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACS Vancouver board chair Howard Harowitz briefly described the missions of each of the event sponsors before introducing the night\u2019s speakers, beginning with Rivkin, who shared the stories of a few community members who have been impacted by the risk of homelessness. She prefaced her remarks by saying homelessness is not limited to people living on the street or who live in shelters. Rather, the growing concern in our community is \u201crelative homelessness, the lack of suitable, consistent and predictable housing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also noted that \u201cit is not a natural equation that addiction, mental health and homelessness are faced by all people\u201d in need. \u201cEach person has to be approached individually and uniquely,\u201d she said, then listed six sources of support in our community: JFS, Tikva Housing, Yaffa Housing, JACS, the Kehila Society of Richmond and the community\u2019s synagogues.<\/p>\n

Originally from Regina, Sask., Allen has lived in Abbotsford for a long time. She lives in an area where homeless people have gathered since the Salvation Army moved into the neighbourhood in 2004. A wife and the mother of two children, the situation was very difficult initially. She shared stories of her young granddaughter witnessing people having sex and shooting up, and of being chased out of her home by a crack addict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was quite a happy person and then the homeless moved in and I changed forever,\u201d she said. \u201cI got angrier and angrier and angrier and I ended up making, in 15 years, I made 463 calls to the police. And they came every time and did nothing, because what are they going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen said she became very depressed. Then, she was invited to a meeting at city hall about the homeless. She challenged attendees to come and see the extent of the problem for themselves, and two women from Fraser Health took her up on it. Over coffee, Allen shared with them her concerns and, despite her self-described antagonism to them, they invited her to speak at a meeting of the Drug War Survivors, a peer-based user group that participates in the development of harm-reduction policies, among other things.<\/p>\n

Reluctantly, she agreed. Expecting an audience of maybe 10 drug addicts, \u201cthere were 110 of them,\u201d she said. \u201cI look around and I open my mouth and I just let it all out. I don\u2019t know what happened, it was a miracle, really. I talked about my father and I talked about him beating my mother so desperately,\u201d waking Allen\u2019s sister, who was told to return to bed by their mother, and did. \u201cThat\u2019s what we were raised with,\u201d said Allen. \u201cI had never spoken about it, and I just let it all out,\u201d including how she was kicked out of a school in her teens for selling drugs.<\/p>\n

After her remarks, audience members lined up, but she didn\u2019t know why, so she started to leave. \u201cAs I\u2019m walking out, the first guy comes up and hugs me. They were all standing there to hug me,\u201d she said, holding back tears.<\/p>\n

One of the men recognized Allen from secondary school. He shared with her that he was raised with such anger that he went down the path of drugs, whereas she \u2013 who his family warned him about as a teen, since she sold drugs \u2013 did not. He said to Allen, \u201cI see now that I, too, can change my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interaction, she said, changed her life. \u201cI went home, and I was walking up the driveway to get the mail and this crazy lady that lived on the street and was a huge drug addict and was nasty and did not like me, she came running up my driveway swearing and yelling at me with this other guy. I was so emotional, I went running at her, I don\u2019t know what I was going to do, and I stopped. I changed my mind. I turned around and I went home. And my life changed. Everything on our street is still happening and nothing has changed much there, except me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen started giving to the homeless. She joined the city\u2019s Business Engagement Ambassador Project, which works to build relationships between Abbotsford residents, business owners, homeless and others to strengthen the sense of community. \u201cWhat I do is I speak all over the place and raise money to help them help themselves,\u201d she said of those who are homeless.<\/p>\n

The project is a year-and-half old and she described it as a success. One aspect in particular that is working, she said, is that the program pays homeless people to clean up area businesses and parks.<\/p>\n

The last speaker, Bowman, now 22 years old, has been clean for just over four years. He is a youth program support worker at Last Door, the centre at which he was set on the path of recovery.<\/p>\n

Bowman said he had a good upbringing, went to Jewish summer camp and day schools, was into sports, has lots of friends and has a great family. Having lost his mother to cancer when he was 10, he said, \u201cThat was obviously tough, but by no means do I point my finger at that and say, \u2018that\u2019s when I started using drugs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He described his life as normal, living with his dad and brother. There were no indications, he said, that he would become an addict. Addiction does not discriminate, he said, and people need to know that. His family, he said, were completely surprised to find out about his drug use and were \u201cunversed in the topic of addiction.\u201d Luckily, he had a cousin who works as a drug and alcohol counselor and \u201cshe saved the day\u201d when it came to him seeking help.<\/p>\n

At age 14, Bowman started to experiment with marijuana. He couldn\u2019t say exactly why he started using harder drugs, but perhaps he had just gotten in with the wrong crowd. He described the process as progressive. \u201cIt went from using once in awhile to using every day, to doing whatever it takes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get too much into the things I did to get to get high every day but it definitely involved a lot of stealing from the people very close to me. It didn\u2019t matter if you would love me, if you would hate me, if you were older, if you were younger, if I had the chance, I would try and rip you off if I was with you, and that was the reality of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

From age 16 to 18, he was using opiates every day, while still going to school, while still trying to cover up that he was an addict. \u201cI wanted help, but I didn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted help because I knew in my mind that I could be a better person than I\u2019m being right now but, in the other part of my mind, I was scared and I wanted to keep getting high.\u201d<\/p>\n

The breaking point came when he stole a significant amount of money from his brother. From that day, when his brother reacted with love rather than anger \u2013 Dec. 22, 2015 \u2013 the efforts at recovery began, with the help of his father, brother, cousin and others. There were a few false starts, a couple of detox and treatment centres, before he landed at Last Door in mid-January 2016. He has not used drugs since.<\/p>\n

Waiting times and the cost of treatment were among the topics discussed in the question-and-answer period. Giuseppe Ganci, director of community development for Last Door Recovery Society, was in the audience. He explained some of the different levels of care, ranging from assisted living residences, for which there are minimal guidelines, to treatment centres, which will have psychiatrists and other professionals on site. The definitions of the levels differ between regions in the province, he said, making the system hard for people to understand and, therefore, access.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is,\u201d he said, \u201cyou always hear there are not enough beds in British Columbia. That\u2019s actually a myth. There are so many beds. Last Door runs probably at 80% capacity every day [and has] for years. We have about 100 beds and only 35 of them are funded [by government]; the rest, there\u2019s no funding for them, so it\u2019s a shortage of funding for treatment, it\u2019s not a shortage of beds.\u201d This means that people who can afford it are able to get treatment within 24 hours, rather than join the queue of six to eight weeks or longer, he said.<\/p>\n

After a couple more questions, Harowitz wrapped up the event. Addiction is not a choice, he stressed, citing JACS speaker Steve Whiteside. \u201cIt\u2019s not a weakness of character, it\u2019s not anything other than any other kind of disease that people have,\u201d he said, challenging the audience \u201cto keep the conversation going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Peggy Allen, Shelley Karrel, Shelley Rivkin, Jordan Bowman and Howard Harowitz. (photo from JACS Vancouver) The capacity for transformation and healing was front and centre at the event Optimism and Hope: Erasing Stigma of Mental Illness, Addiction and Homelessness. Co-sponsored by Jewish Family Services (JFS), Tikva Housing and Jewish Addiction Community Services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2551,2090,7439,7703,9746,9745,5107,2327,6098],"class_list":["post-34400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-addiction","tag-homelessness","tag-jacs-vancouver","tag-jfs","tag-jordan-bowman","tag-peggy-allen","tag-recovery","tag-shelley-rivkin","tag-tikva-housing"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}