Psychologist has personal stake in Vancouver homeless project

Few people know more than Julian Somers about the socio-psychological aspects of Vancouver’s homeless problem, but the issue is also deeply personal for the SFU health sciences associate professor.

Somers, who formerly directed the university’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, is now the Vancouver principal investigator for the Canadian Multi-site Research Demonstration Project in Mental Health and Homelessness.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada and Health Canada are co-sponsoring the $110-million five-city research initiative that is tasked with finding ways to help the growing number of homeless Canadians who have a mental illness.

But the Vancouver psychologist’s most visceral connection to homelessness is literally in his blood: Somers’ father was an alcoholic who lived his final tragic years in a Downtown Eastside hotel with no support before dying from alcohol-related disease.

"My dad’s story is the same as many others," he says. "He was a self-educated Irishman involved in local theatre. He was literate, had a house in Point Grey. And it wasn’t just one single thing but a series of events and missed opportunities that put him on a trajectory terminating in precarious housing, untreated illness and premature death."

The homelessness research initiative—the first randomized trial of housing interventions undertaken in Canada—is employing a "housing first" approach to immediately provide permanent housing for the homeless and then the services to support them once they are stabilized. The current system provides emergency shelter and transitional housing first.

About 80 per cent of the Vancouver site’s $23.5-million budget is earmarked for housing and services for the homeless with the remainder devoted to data collection and research. Some 300 of the city’s 500 homeless participants will receive rental support for 2 ½ years plus ongoing individualized health support.

"Homeless people with mental disorders are grossly disenfranchised," says Somers. "As a society we need to build a social scaffolding to reclaim these lost people. A scaffolding of new social ideas, a framework of thought, so people can be guided in their social behaviour and actions. That’s the ultimate goal of the study."