Carl DeLine

Increased charity from churches is hopefully the first step in helping the plight of the needy in Calgary, says Carl DeLine, director of The Back Door youth employment project.

“Tonight many people will sleep on the streets,” says DeLine.

“We need to find out why they are homeless, so that we can attempt to do something about it.”

Churches, service clubs, the corporate sector, governments, social agencies, and individuals need to get involved in long-range social planning, to create a community effort to raise serious questions about the homeless, DeLine says.

“The street scene has been somewhat invisible, so the church like the rest of society hasn’t been raising the questions.”

The Back Door helps young street people reintegrate into society.

John Mungham, community coordinator of the Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS), which receives funding from churches, says that “like everyone else, the church is struggling to know the real issues, how they can take charity a step further and get involved in the social development side. We all want to know, but it’s a slow process.”

CUPS, a walk-in clinic and counselling centre located downtown for street people, has had a 25 to 30 percent increase this year.

“Our requests have skyrocketed to 1,200 a month,” Mungham says. “The city is growing and the economy is hurting. We need more low-cost housing.”

Since it opened in 1988, The Back Door has found that many young street people haven fallen through the cracks of the child welfare system.

“There’s also the issue of physical abuse at home – they run away and are afraid to go back home or back into the child welfare system,” says DeLine adding, “They usually turn to juvenile crime.”

There are more homeless people now, DeLine says, “because we’re seeing a greater division between the employed and unemployed. It’s partly due to the recession, but society is in massive change. More lower income jobs are being created and the cost of living is going up.”

Originally published December 24, 1991 by the Calgary Herald (Calgary, AB), credited to Michael Clarkson.