PAT CAPPONI IS ONE OF US:  An Interview

Pat Capponi is one of Canada’s most provocative social activists, a facilitator with Voices From the Street and  best-selling author of Upstairs In the Crazy House and Dispatches from the Poverty Line.

She is “one of Canada’s foremost chroniclers of the dispossessed and disenfranchised.”  (Scott McDonald Quill & Quire Jan 2006)

Voices From the Street is comprised of individuals who have had direct experience with homelessness, poverty, and/or mental health issues. The organization works to put a human face to homelessness and involves people with direct experience as leaders in a public education process. (left Mike Creek and Pat Capponi)

The Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses (OCAB) is a provincial organization committed to increasing employment opportunities for psychiatric consumer/survivors. OCAB houses Voices from the Street.

I first learned of Pat Capponi in the early ’90’s when I was steeped in the culture of hospital and diagnosis. A friend gave me her book to read, “Upstairs at the Crazy House” and I couldn’t put it down! Finally, somebody was speaking our language about our lives. I saw her speak whenever I could after that.

We met  in the offices of OCAB some years later when I applied and was accepted for the first round of training for Voices From The Street. (There have been four graduating classes since. They are planning another).

Pat was/is the primary facilitator and taught us the art of personal narrative. The experience was profound and I know I am not the only one to have undergone a transformation.

We sat down for lunch last week in Parkdale with Mike Creek, Co-ordinator of Voices and co-chair of the 25in5 network. These two gentle and experienced souls compliment each other beautifully, but make no mistake. They mean business when it comes to poverty on all fronts.

We ate at ‘Poor John’s’ , gracious courtesy of Mike Creek.

C: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Toronto 31 yrs ago Pat?

P: I arrived in 1978. I was 29 yrs old. My oldest sister was here. I was not in good shape.

I landed in St Mike’s. I’d come from the Douglas Hospital in Montreal. I was in St Mike’s for 3 mos. and 11 days. Just before going to the Douglas, I had worked as a group home parent for seven teenage boys.  It was a live-in position, and I really enjoyed the four years I spent there, but I was exhausted.  The Douglas was a low point for me, I couldn’t seem to get myself back.

I was sent from St Mike’s to Channon Court, a psychiatric boarding home in Parkdale. That was an eye-opener. That was sink or swim. I had no idea what to do, didn’t know the city, and didn’t know how things worked. I didn’t even know what “Queen St” was when they threatened to send me there from St Mike’s if I wasn’t “good”; I just knew that it sounded like not such a good place.

Once in the boarding home, I was scared out of my mind. There were 70 of us just all squished in. They’d told me I couldn’t work. I didn’t know what to do.

It was there I first started to read The Koran.

People started asking me to do things. I’d had a little more education, and I’d been out in the world more. I’d been hospitalized 7 times but these were 2, 5, 7 mth stays, not years, or a lifetime, like most of these people.

After I stopped being scared, I started to take a leadership role in the house, asking questions about what had happened to the people there, where they’d been, I learned about de-institutionalization, the closing of the hospitals, the really horrible conditions we were all stuck in.

Welfare was really low, can’t remember what it was but I had about seven or eight dollars left after room and board and that was for everything. It was pretty grim but, as you know, poor people are always generous.

While I was there, we started a newspaper called “Cuckoo’s Nest”. The guys would write for that and I’d make sure that the Minister of Health and the Deputy Minister got a copy, cause they’re always paranoid and they figure if they’re getting it everybody else must be getting it. I could only afford to put out a couple hundred copies but I made sure the right people got it.

There was a real nice lady who worked at Archway that let us use typewriters and photocopiers. We started getting media, The Globe and The Star. We toured the Minister of Health in the boarding homes. (He was visibly shaken in photos of the tour) He sat and met a lot of the people in “Upstairs in the Crazy House”. (Pat’s 1992 memoir of poverty and depression based on her experiences at Channon Court)

C: As a leader, what was your inspiration?

P: Desperation.

I’d been an activist in college, and first in high school. I knew how to put out a newspaper, and I knew how to go first- because you have to go first.  As a leader, you have to show people that if you do something you’re not going to get “killed”. They watch.  So I went first. At meetings, with the media, I learned a lot. I learned that you don’t look at people’s diagnosis before you know the person. It was a good lesson. I was lucky. I got to meet people, talk with people and not know what was supposed to be wrong with them. Because then you see the whole person before you see the illness. I knew what was happening was very wrong. It had to be wrong.

C: What’s changed?

P: An amazing amount. Last month I attended a conference, a round table with the Mental Health Commission. They were all a bunch of consumer/survivors and we were all asking for the same things, you know, jobs, having discrimination removed, decent housing…I felt superfluous and I thought…you know, this is pretty cool.

We’re still up against it when it comes to poverty. You know, it’s keeping people down. With or without diagnosis. We’re still up against it when it comes to medication and forcing it on people, but we’ve come a long, long way. That’s the benefit of having hung around a few decades.

Another thing that’s changed: Voices (from the Street) sends out people to talk in different venues.

They were doing grand rounds at St Mike’s, two of our guys, and there were two baby shrinks in the audience. They were very touched by what they heard and they called and set up a meeting. First year psychiatric residents at U of T. They thought they could develop an underground curriculum for first year students that would be more relevant than what they were being taught. So we started meeting and we’ve been meeting now for three years. Once a month, in their houses, in our homes, the shrinks cook for us, we order out…and we talk. We’re going to Linda Chamberlain’s (1) next. What they’re encountering on their journey and  what they see, feel, and what we see…it’s been quite something.

It’s been amazing. It’s kind of, it’s changed my feeling about psychiatry a bit. And I have some hope now about where it’s going.

I still know though that we will not make progress as a community of survivors until we understand that the poverty most survivors live in as a consequence of being labelled must be targetted for eradication, along with prejudice, bad housing, and powerlessness.

Too often we think the effects of poverty are the effects of whatever label we have, but if we can ensure that all of us in Ontario have the right to education, work, re-training, adequate incomes, decent housing and nutritious food, we will surely see the drop-off in statistics of those going to CAMH for help.

That is why Voices is active in 25 in 5, to fight for a meaningful existence for you, for me, for all those who’ve suffered in isolation and powerlessness and dread.’

C: What about boarding homes today compared to then?

P:  When we look at Habitat for instance, we’ve done some work there and the residents were very clear that having to share a room with 2 or 3 other people is so stressful, so highly stressful. There’s a very articulate fella that once said that being able to close his door on other people cured him 97% of what was bugging him.

So boarding homes and rooming houses are not really the way to go.  Most of them are quite shabby. People are dealing with bedbugs and other issues that are really disgusting. In that sense we don’t say “high or low functioning”, we say “high or low meds”. We’ve become far too compliant around and reliant on medication.

There is a good example for modeling boarding homes developed by the same people responsible for developing The Gerstein on Bloor. Everybody has their own room with a lock and key to their door. They’re very respectful and it’s a lovely space. I was quite surprised. And pleased.

C:  The growth of “Agency” has been steady since the late‘70’s but nothing like it’s been in the last 10 years. What is the role of this growing entity in poor people’s lives?

P:   I worked with Parc (Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre) for several years.

I was a member of Parc before I worked there. Many of those who were members thenare dead. There are no great success stories. And I start wondering, why the hell not?

Staff are good, they have grown. They’re paying for their kids’ university, for cars, paying for their houses.

Agencies have grown. They’re doing very well for themselves. They have health centers, legal clinics, drop-ins, missions, all these agencies burgeoning. They’re doing well.

But the people (they serve) aren’t. They aren’t doing well at all. This has led me to believe there is something inherently flawed with how we deal with poor people. Not that people are evil, but the class differences, the experiential differences are so profound. The erosion of the individual after years of being dependent on Agency is the total erosion of spirit, of will, and belief in oneself. It is very, very troubling.

It is my belief that we have to “take back” ourselves from “that” and continue to demand that we get equal opportunity when it comes to credentials vs. experience.

They have to respect our experience. Not everybody with a direct experience of poverty is going to be a good worker but if you come through and you’re empathetic and energetic and you care about people, what else do you need?

Whereas, people coming out of school who haven’t experienced a lot of what we’ve experienced, they need to learn. So we both have things to learn, but right now, that dynamic isn’t happening…

C: What about the Gerstein? How did you meet and begin working with Reva?

P: I met Reva Gerstein at a press conference about twenty years ago at the Mayor’s office (Art Eggleton) and I thought, oh God help us now. How is she ever going to understand our needs? That was my first impression.

I had been fighting with Agencies for such a long time as far as policy issues and inclusion, things like that. But you judge people by their actions. And she was amazing. I’ve been working with her ever since.

Reva let us take however much responsibility we wanted to take. She listened. She was at  City Hall while we were giving deputations. It was so cool. She was respectful. Her meetings were always so civilized. We are great friends to this day.

She’s 92 and sharp as a tack. Just beautiful.

C: Have you always been a writer?

P: Yes.

C: You’ve written 7 books, 2 fiction. Your book “Upstairs at the Crazy House”, based on your experience at Shannon Court, is non-fiction that reads like fiction. Your current work, a series of mysteries set in Parkdale with heroine and alter-ego Dana Leoni is reminiscent of the “characters” in Crazy House. Why write about these characters, the setting, Pat?

P: The setting is the boarding home where I used to live. The characters are people that lived in the house who are no longer with us, like Gerry. I loved Gerry.

And so it’s bringing them back to life and letting them win that’s so much fun

I love doing that.

C: Has it been healing?

P: It’s supposed to be, but I don’t know. I’ve never found it particularly cathartic, but I enjoy it. What I like doing is finding a different way to say the same things. It makes it palatable for people to listen or to hear. I hope people take away a better understanding of what it’s like to be dirt poor. I want it to touch their hearts.

Deb Matthews’ mother read both the books (Last Stop Sunnyside &The Corpse Can Wait). She emailed me thatshe really loved them, that she was out taking a walk on Eglinton and saw a poor guy beging and because of reading the books she said, “Hey, I know that guy…I was just reading about him” and I thought, well there ya go!

I want to make people more human. It’s not that we’re all noble savages, because no we’re not. But in the main, all in all, we’re pretty decent people.

C: Why did you survive Pat?

P: It was close. It was very close… I don’t know.

C: Was it education?

P:  Only had a year of University after college. But I hadn’t been locked away most of my life either. Why did I survive?

Perhaps because I still have work to do.

Other books by Pat Capponni: Dispatches from the Poverty Line 1997, The War at Home: an intimate portrait of Canada’s Poor 1999, Bound by Duty: walking the beat with Canada’s cops 2000, Beyond the Crazy House: Changing the Future of Madness 2003. Read a review of Last Stop Sunnyside in Oct archive of Peacock.

OCAB has assisted groups of psychiatric survivors in the development of survivor-run businesses using a Community Economic Development approach. OCAB has created a handbook for Alternative Business development entitled “Working for a Change” which is available to groups interested in starting the process in their communities. OCAB owns and operates 3 businesses in Toronto: the Raging Spoon restaurant, Out of This World Café & Espresso Bar and Parkdale Green Thumb Enterprises. OCAB also owns and operates Crazy Cooks Catering in Peterborough. The Council’s current mandate is to sustain and strengthen existing businesses and to advocate for increased economic opportunities for consumer/survivors.

Becky McFarland and Joyce Brown are co-directers of OCAB and worked closely (partnered) with us in the first class of Voices. It was Becky’s brainstorm. The team at OCAB are a wonderful bunch;  warm, helpful and diligent. They include Pat Fowler, DawnMarie Harriott, Mary Goddard and Maggie Griffin (Green Thumb enterprises) and (houses) Voices.

www.ocab.ca

www.25in5.ca

www.voicesfromthestreet.ca

www.quillandquire.com

Nov 2nd, 2009

Happy Birthday Gene and Mike.

c.smith

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