Local Heroes
 

By DeMont, John; Nemeth, Mary; McDonald, Marci; Phillips, Todd; Steele,Scott; Eisler, Dale; Driedger, Sharon Doyle; Came, Barry; W,

Macleans's Magazine, July 1, 1994, Vol. 109
 

In a second-floor walk-up above a Toronto dry-cleaning shop, a posteron the office walls asks: "What do Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill,Gustav Mahler and some of your friends have in common?" The answer: "Depressiveillness." That reminder has more than the usual resonance for Laurie Hall,the sunny 34-year-old executive director of A-Way Express Courier Service.From the age of 19, Hall was in and out of psychiatric wards with a mystifyingrange of diagnoses that kept her dependent on mind-numbing drugs. Finally,her doctor advised her to quit her job as a veterinary technician. "I remembergoing to a bank trying to open an account with a welfare cheque," she says,"and they laughed at me. I was so humiliated." In 1991, after a stint ingrim rooming houses and living on the street, Hall attempted suicide-swallowingher month's supply of medication in a single gulp. When she woke from acoma, she discovered a chunk of her bowel had been cut out. "That was thevery bottom," she says. "Absolute hell."

But, inching back to health, she suddenly found a reason to get up eachday: a job she landed as a part-time courier at A-Way, a delivery firmlaunched in 1987 by former patients of mental institutions who dub themselves"psychiatric survivors." In A-Way's common room, she met others who hadendured the same devastating struggles. Now, Hall serves as the $42,000-a-yearexecutive director of a nonprofit company that is entirely run by psychiatricsurvivors, from its 40 couriers to its office staff of 17, which includesdispatchers and bookkeepers. Fresh from celebrating its ninth anniversarylast month, A-Way has been hailed as a model of its kind both in this countryand abroad- an innovative attempt to tackle the estimated 85-per-cent unemploymentrate among those with a history of mental health problems. "A-Way was amatter of life and death for me," says Hall. "It made the difference thathelped me survive."

The notion grew out of the trend to de-institutionalize psychiatricpatients. But once released, most found their lives a meaningless roundof rejection and boredom, and they usually landed back in the hospital."No employer was going to hire a psychiatric survivor," says Hall. "There'sstill such a stigma attached. People have a real fear of mental illness."But one group decided to take the problem into its own hands. With a grantfrom the Ontario ministry of health- and advice from a board member whoran her own delivery company-they settled on a courier business where themessengers, each outfitted with a two-way radio and a public transit pass,travelled by foot, bus and subway instead of bicycle or car. That gavethose barred from driving because of their medication a chance to work.Unlike other businesses, A-Way tailored its modus operandi to meet itsemployees' needs, allowing leaves of absence for treatment or relapses.

Paying each courier a 70-per-cent commission on each delivery, it startedout with a handful of government and social service agency accounts. Now,its roster of 1,000 clients includes hospitals, credit unions and architects.A dozen couriers a year move on to other jobs, and like the ones who stay,they belie the conventional wisdom that those pronounced unemployable cannotwork. For many, the sole restraint on their enthusiasm is the cap on theirsocial assistance benefits that allows them to make only $160 a month extrabefore being subject to deductions. But half of A-Way's couriers opt forthat penalty-and staying occupied. "You can get out of the house and bringa cheque to the bank that isn't a welfare cheque," says Hall. "All thatself- esteem stuff-people are paying for that."

Last year, A-Way made a 10-per-cent profit on $120,000 in billings,but it has not been without turbulence. Occasionally, a courier gets disorientedand has to be bailed out on the road. And three years ago, a ministry ofhealth oversight team discovered the company's bookkeeping was in disarray.Ironically, that situation arose when professionals were in charge. Whenthey left, Hall applied for the executive director's post-one of only asmall number of psychiatric survivors among 40 applicants. A-Way's incredulousstaff was delighted when she won the job. "It was one thing to be couriers,"says Hall. "But it's really a big thing to say we can run it ourselves."

A-Way has inspired other psychiatric survivor businesses-among thema seven-year-old Toronto cleaning service called Fresh Start Cleaning &Maintenance. But none could exist without provincial operating grants,which are scheduled for further cuts next year. Still, Mari Creal, a psychiatricsurvivor who is Fresh Start's co-ordinator, has come up with an argumentfor continued funding from a survey of her own staff. Before being hired,most averaged 48 days a year in hospital; afterward, it dropped to four.Calculating the bill for such a stay, she estimated the cost to taxpayershad plunged from $580,000 to $51,000 for Fresh Start's 30 employees. Butthe real benefit remains beyond the reach of the bottom line. "I was toldI was incapable of working," says Creal. "What's important about thesebusinesses is that the lives of some of the poorest and most marginalizedmembers of society are greatly enhanced."