No Straight Lines

Local Leadership and the Path from Government to Governance in Small Cities

Terry Kading

• Publisher: University of Calgary Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781552389478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Pianificazione e sviluppo urbano

Small cities face intricate challenges. No Straight Lines provides the basis for a refined model of community engaged leadership and research designed to realize equality of quality of life. With particular attention to the small city of Kamloops, BC, this collection explores the impact of extended, short term, and unique leadership collaborations. It addresses local responses to homelessness, sustainability, food security, and more. It offers insight into the role of the university in the small city as a place of learning, and a contributor to positive change. Based on active engagement, this book reveals the barriers present in addressing local needs, and the transformations that can be achieved through effective collaboration. It offers valuable insights into flexible practices that respond to the needs of community organizations and recognizes the challenges associated with resource constraints and capacity limitations. This unique collection provides new insights into the twists and turns of leadership and learning in the small city.

1

Promoting “Community Leadership and Learning” on Social Challenges: Government of Canada Homelessness Initiatives and the Small City of Kamloops, British Columbia

Terry Kading

Introduction

Kamloops, British Columbia, is one of many urban centres across Canada engaged in an effort to “end homelessness” in their communities. The impetus for this effort lies in the federal government’s National Homelessness Initiative, launched in late 1999 to “partner” with communities across Canada in addressing the immediate needs of the homelessness crisis emerging on the streets of Canada’s cities (Smith 2004; Graham 2011; Kading 2012). While first proposed for the ten largest urban centres in Canada, the initiative was expanded in 2001 to include another 51 designated communities confronting evident homelessness. This federal initiative was, and remains, a response to the withdrawal by this very same level of government from some 40 years of direct funding and support for low-income and social housing, in an effort to balance budgets and reduce the national debt. With an inadequate response from the provinces to this off-loading of responsibility in housing and social support, the Government of Canada returned with a new and revised funding model to address homelessness—a model that placed the onus on local communities to assume a leadership role in addressing an emerging homelessness crisis. This leadership role compelled designated communities (of which Kamloops is one) to enter into a complex area of urban planning for which many small cities lack both the experience and the resource capacity (Kading 2012).

figure 1.1. “The Path to Home,” poster by Geralyn Alain, 2017. Courtesy of Geralyn Alain and the United Way Thompson Nicola Cariboo.

This chapter examines the local response to homelessness in the City of Kamloops, focusing on the context that gave rise to this local leadership role, the achievements to date, and the multiple challenges that have arisen as a result of increased knowledge of local homelessness. Drawing on government documents (local and federal), local plans, press reports, interviews, and observations from participation in a local anti-poverty network—Changing the Face of Poverty—the chapter assesses accomplishments in improving equality of quality of life in this area, highlighting what has been learned about the local homelessness situation and detailing the challenges in the effort to end homelessness in Kamloops. This study is unique, as it examines the increased responsibility of local communities and local governments in addressing homelessness and the distinctive politics of the small city in adjusting to this devolution of responsibility. There is little doubt that the local response was initially a coercive collaboration—the Kamloops Community Committee—as a condition of accessing federal monies to address the immediate needs of the local homeless population. However, from this would emerge the Changing the Face of Poverty network, a mimetic collaboration that would ensure that housing the homeless and addressing poverty would be the local priorities.1 The tension between the numerous limitations inherent in this devolution of responsibilities and partnership with higher levels of government, along with the positives—notably the gathering of detailed information on lived realities in this particular community—is the central focus of this chapter, and confirms the worst and the best qualities of the new models of governance and “governing through community” (see Introduction). This chapter details the benefits of the transactional leadership resulting from this devolution, along with the myriad of constraints in moving toward transformational leadership outcomes in achieving equality of quality of life for our most marginalized residents.

figure 1.2. Changing the Face of Poverty Network by Terry Kading. Design by Moneca Jantzen, Daily Designz.

Fomenting Community Leadership and Learning

After decades of federal government dominance in social and housing policies, this critical leadership role was rapidly devolved to the local level in initiating solutions to complex social problems—notably the homelessness crisis. The required community planning process would involve broad consultation with numerous agencies, non-profit organizations, business groups, and the local community on multiple themes related to homelessness. At another level this process would include the contracting of consultants for research, the creation of an official “social planning / community development” position, new program budgeting, and substantial monetary commitments in city property, tax and development cost exemptions, and non-profit grants to fulfill these various social planning goals. This section examines the terms of the new model advanced by the Government of Canada in 1999 in addressing homelessness, and the local and provincial dynamics as communities assumed an awkward leadership role that had been thrust upon them by higher levels of government. Since 1999 the Government of Canada has established a firm position on addressing these social issues through what it refers to as The Power of Partnerships:

The basic theory behind partnerships is that working together and leveraging assets and resources is more effective than working in isolation. A partnership draws its strength from coordinating resources so that two or more individuals or groups can work toward a common goal. Partnerships are especially important in addressing issues such as homelessness and poverty. Because they are multi-dimensional, these issues require multi-dimensional responses (such as affordable housing, employment, justice, training, child care, mental health, addictions, etc.). (Government of Canada 2008)

What is noteworthy in this statement is the extent to which areas of jurisdiction understood as responsibilities of only the federal or provincial levels of government are passed down to the local level—with the justification that “no one level of government, sector or organization can claim to be able to address these issues in isolation.… Community-based approaches to addressing social issues like homelessness seek to empower local organizations and individuals through an atmosphere of dignity and participation, with the goal of achieving durable results” (Government of Canada 2008). It is against this understanding of the benefits of collaboration, both vertical (local, provincial, and federal) and horizontal (community level), that we will evaluate this devolution of leadership and learning.

By the end of the 1990s there were only a very small number of public housing units being built at the provincial level, and the majority of subsidies needed to promote the construction of low-income rental or housing units had been whittled away in a drive to rein in federal and provincial spending (Murphy 2000; Layton 2008).2 These federal and provincial actions did not go unnoticed at the local level, as homeless issues (often linked to cold winter deaths) garnered media attention in Canada’s largest urban centres (Schwan 2016). By late 1999 the federal government had decided to re-enter the “housing” arena, but with a considerably narrower field of attention—support for emergency shelters and transitional housing, through the creation of the National Homelessness Initiative (NHI). The NHI initially invested $753 million over three years to “help alleviate and prevent homelessness across Canada” (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada 2011). More than a renewed collaboration with provincial governments, the focus of the NHI was on a direct federal government partnership with communities with a demonstrated homeless problem. The NHI had the goal to “facilitate community capacity by coordinating Government of Canada efforts and enhancing the diversity of tools and resources,” “foster effective partnerships and investment that contribute to addressing the immediate and multifaceted needs of the homeless and reducing homelessness in Canada,” and “increase awareness and understanding of homelessness in Canada” (HRSDC 2011). The NHI was composed of three components: the Supporting Communities Partnerships Initiative (SCPI)—“a demonstration program, aimed at encouraging communities to work with provincial, territorial and municipal governments and the private sector and voluntary organizations to address the immediate needs of homeless people”; the Youth Homelessness Strategy; and an Urban Aboriginal Strategy (NHI n.d., 2–5). Of the three the SCPI was the most important component. SCPI established nine criteria for an acceptable planning process as the bases for accessing available funds:

• designated Geographic Area
• Objectives—“to be achieved by March 31, 2003”3
• Community Plan Development Process—with particular attention to “involving Aboriginal, youth and homeless persons throughout”
• Assets and Gaps reports—updated on a regular basis
• Priorities
• Sustainability—ability to secure other sources of funding
• Evaluation—“that should be an annual process”
• Communication Plan
• Community Financial Contributions

These funding conditions compelled not just a local collaboration but considerable documentation as to existing resources and services and a commitment to ongoing local consultation, reporting, and promotion. Notable is the original short time frame in which to establish and meet all objectives, with only two years, including the completion of proposed projects. With no certainty of continued funding after 2003 despite local efforts to meet these criteria, and the fact that the Government of Canada was only committed to funding a portion of the overall initiative, it is clear that there was no comprehensive and long-term plan to empower local organizations.

Access to funds required a “Community Plan” that directly addressed the issue of homelessness, establishment of “Community Planning Groups” that had demonstrated broad consultation and inclusion, and a “City Homelessness Facilitator.” The Community Plan was expected to “provide community service organizations with a framework in which to work together to achieve common goals; assist the community to make the best possible use of scarce resources by reducing overlap and duplication; enable the community to evaluate its progress in reaching its objectives; and identify other sources of funding that the community will use to meet its 50% matching requirement” (NHI n.d., 12). Further, “the plan must reflect the needs of the key groups at risk—Aboriginal peoples, women and their children, youth, immigrants, refugees, substance abusers and the mentally ill—and involve them in the planning process” (12). Of these, the clear identification of Assets and Gaps was the most important, as “research has shown that homelessness is most effectively reduced by implementing a seamless underpinning of support services that helps people—over time—move from a situation where they are without permanent shelter or in danger of becoming homeless, to one of self-sufficiency” (14). It was expected that the community “list the supports and services that currently exist in your community—programs, services, human resources, equipment, buildings, land, etc.” and use “this...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction | Leadership, Learning, and Equality of Quality of Lifein the Small City
• 1 | Promoting “Community Leadership and Learning” on Social Challenges: Government of Canada Homelessness Initiatives and the Small City of Kamloops, British Columbia
• 2 | “What a Difference a Shower Can Make”1
• 3 | No Straight Lines: Using Creativity as a Method to Fight Homelessness
• 4 | The Kamloops Public Produce Project: A Story of Place, Partnerships, and Proximity in an Edible Garden Setting
• 5 | The Kamloops Adult Learners Society: Leadership through Organic Partnerships and Knowledge Support in the Small City
• 6 | The Tranquille Oral History Project: Reflections on a Community-Engaged Research Initiative in Kamloops, British Columbia
• 7 | Conclusion - Leadership Initiatives and Community-Engaged Research: Explorations and Critical Insights on “Leadership and Learning” in the Small City of Kamloops
• Index