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 poster on the office walls asks: "What do Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Gustav Mahler and some of your friends have in common?" The answer: "Depressive illness." 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 mystifying range of diagnoses that kept her dependent on mind-numbing drugs. Finally, her doctor advised her to quit her job as a veterinary technician. "I remember going 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 in grim rooming houses and living on the street, Hall attempted suicide-swallowing her month's supply of medication in a single gulp. When she woke from a coma, she discovered a chunk of her bowel had been cut out. "That was the very bottom," she says. "Absolute hell."

But, inching back to health, she suddenly found a reason to get up each day: a job she landed as a part-time courier at A-Way, a delivery firm launched in 1987 by former patients of mental institutions who dub themselves "psychiatric survivors." In A-Way's common room, she met others who had endured the same devastating struggles. Now, Hall serves as the $42,000-a-year executive director of a nonprofit company that is entirely run by psychiatric survivors, from its 40 couriers to its office staff of 17, which includes dispatchers and bookkeepers. Fresh from celebrating its ninth anniversary last month, A-Way has been hailed as a model of its kind both in this country and abroad- an innovative attempt to tackle the estimated 85-per-cent unemployment rate among those with a history of mental health problems. "A-Way was a matter of life and death for me," says Hall. "It made the difference that helped me survive."

The notion grew out of the trend to de-institutionalize psychiatric patients. But once released, most found their lives a meaningless round of rejection and boredom, and they usually landed back in the hospital. "No employer was going to hire a psychiatric survivor," says Hall. "There's still 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 grant from the Ontario ministry of health- and advice from a board member who ran her own delivery company-they settled on a courier business where the messengers, each outfitted with a two-way radio and a public transit pass, travelled by foot, bus and subway instead of bicycle or car. That gave those barred from driving because of their medication a chance to work. Unlike other businesses, A-Way tailored its modus operandi to meet its employees' needs, allowing leaves of absence for treatment or relapses.

Paying each courier a 70-per-cent commission on each delivery, it started out 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 cannot work. For many, the sole restraint on their enthusiasm is the cap on their social assistance benefits that allows them to make only $160 a month extra before being subject to deductions. But half of A-Way's couriers opt for that penalty-and staying occupied. "You can get out of the house and bring a cheque to the bank that isn't a welfare cheque," says Hall. "All that self- 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 disoriented and has to be bailed out on the road. And three years ago, a ministry of health oversight team discovered the company's bookkeeping was in disarray. Ironically, that situation arose when professionals were in charge. When they left, Hall applied for the executive director's post-one of only a small number of psychiatric survivors among 40 applicants. A-Way's incredulous staff 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 them a 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 psychiatric survivor who is Fresh Start's co-ordinator, has come up with an argument for 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 taxpayers had plunged from $580,000 to $51,000 for Fresh Start's 30 employees. But the real benefit remains beyond the reach of the bottom line. "I was told I was incapable of working," says Creal. "What's important about these businesses is that the lives of some of the poorest and most marginalized members of society are greatly enhanced."