The Westerner for October 7, 2013

Posted by Brian F. Thompson 
on Oct 07, 2013
 

Meeting:     Chair - Fred Kraft; Music - Everyone; Grace - Ed Schultz

Attendance / Guests - 33, including Julian Daly & Shelly Braiden from Boyle Street Community Services and Rotaractors Caline Strach, Disane Kufja, Walaa Kamal & Kelly Thompson.

Announcements:

  • Carol Turner is in U of A Hospital with 6 cracked ribs.  Dave advises that she is not able to have any visitors at this time.  Dave is spending most of his time at the hospital with Carol.
  • President Duane is down east this week to attend and participate in National Energy Board hearings on the Enbridge proposed reversal of flow in Line 9 from Sarnia, Ontario to Montreal, PQ.
  • Zen Moisey talked about how inspiring the District 5370 Conference was this past weekend.  We were well represented by Ingrid Neitsch, David Gibbens, Darryll White, Darrel Ripley, Zen Moisey & John Blimke.  Appologies to anyone who we missed in this list.
  • The Rotaract Club which is being formed at Grant McEwan University had several attendees at the District Conference, and as a result of a Dragons Den type of competition for funding, this new club won $2,100 in funding for its first project.  We will hear more about the details of the project in the future.  Congratulations to Mike Ryan for his hard work in getting this new club off the ground.  Judging by the quality of the attendees at our meeting today, it has a great future.  Mike reminded us that we will have to help with the fundraising activities of this Rotaract Club, by attending their functions, donating items for their auctions, or donating our time to help them get a good start.
  • Congratulations again to Mike Ryan who was honoured recently by the Canadian Criminal Justice Association.  Mike showed off the award which he received at their annual meeting in Vancouver.
  • Community Service Director Ben Doz presented $7,000 in cheques to Capital Care Grandview for the concert series and the wireless network in the House of Friendship, and a $5,000 cheque to Kids Innercity Development Society for the McCauley Park Rink.
  • Chris Gowers managed to raise $56.21 in fines without much effort.
  • The 50/50 draw was not won by Dan Graham & Ed Schultz.
  • Darryll White is pleased to be back at a Club meeting after a long absence.  He through in some happy bucks because last week he had a corneal transplant.  He reminded everyone how important it is to fill out those organ donor cards and to talk to your family members about your wish to donate your organs
  • This is Read-In week at Lansdowne Elementary School for several of our members.
  • No meeting next Monday due to Thanksgiving weekend.
 

PROGRAM - BOYLE STREET COMMUNITY SERVICES

Brent Birch introduced our speaker Julian Daly, Executive Director of Boyle Street Community Services.  It was formerly known as the Boyle Street Co-Op.  This organization serves the needs of approximately 9,000 individuals each year.  Most are chronically homeless, many are aboriginals and many are now new Canadians.  They all share a culture of poverty and the stigma of marginalization.

The Boyle Street Drop-in Centre is located on 105 Avenue just west of 101 Street (behind the Baccarat Casino & the new Arena).  Their kitchen prepares and serves some 200,000 meals each year.  They operate a Streetworks van to deliver nursing and outreach harm reduction services to sex trade workers and people who inject drugs or smoke crack.  Their focus is on HIV and Hepatitis C prevention.  Boyle Street operates four group homes across the city for youth aged 2 to 18.  It also operates a 62-unit affordable housing project in the Abbottsfield neighborhood.

Julian talked about the weather getting cooler and how hard our winters are on homeless people.  Winter is the busiest time of the year for the staff and volunteers at Boyle Street.  Boyle Street is the only organization which does not exclude people based on intoxication.  They can and do exclude on the basis of unacceptable behaviour.

Julian also talked about some trends they are noticing:

  1. More young people are becoming clients of Boyle Street.  They are now dealing with more than 50 each day.
  2. Despite Edmonton's recent gains in the number of affordable or non-market housing units, they seem to be losing ground because of in-migration to Edmonton by persons moving into the City from first nations communities and by persons moving into Edmonton looking for work but without the resources to find housing.  Because of the low vacancy rate, it is very hard for very poor or troubled people to find accommodations and are forced to live in tents in the river valley.
  3. Downtown development in Edmonton is impacting the Boyle Street operation in both positive and negative ways.

Other services provided by Boyle Street include:

  • Outreach to the River Valley & City Parks where people are living without permanent homes
  • A mental health office
  • Litter removal services in Edmonton's core area
  • Lawn Order, lawn maintenance and landscape construction services
  • Aboriginal Cultural advisor
  • Home visitation support for families
  • Pre-natal support

 If you would like to donate to Boyle Street, you can do so by going to donor@boylestreet.org

Julian was thanked for his presentation by David Gibbens.